Yorkshire's Vitality Blast struggles continue as Durham inflict fifth straight loss
Durham’s impressive start to the Vitality Blast continued with a convincing victory over struggling Yorkshire at Headingley.
It was the visitors’ fourth win in five games – this one by a margin 21 runs defending a total 56.
For their part, it was the White Rose’s fifth successive T20 defeat.
Having battled hard with the ball after a fast start for the visitors, they were unable to gain any momentum with the bat and finished on 134-8.
Durham’s 155-6 had seen Bess Heath top-score with 36 off 25 balls before their Yorkshire-born leg-spinner Katie Levick impressed with 2-13 from four overs.
The seam of Heather Graham and Sophia Turner claimed three and two wickets respectively.
Scotland seamer Hannah Rainey struck twice in her first game of the season for Yorkshire following a broken rib, while England all-rounder Sarah Glenn bowled nicely for 1-27 with her leg-spin on her White Rose debut having missed the first two months of 2026 with a broken finger.
Durham’s cause was advanced by a host of useful contributions on a typically true surface here.
Each one of their top six made at least 17, but only Heath, captain Hollie Armitage with 24 and wicketkeeper Mia Rogers with 29 not out were able to get out of the teens.
Openers Armitage and Mady Villiers took 32 off first three overs. But seam and spin put the brakes on.
Rainey had Villiers caught at deep midwicket pulling and Emily Windsor caught at point, while off-spinner Claudie Cooper struck twice in the 17th over to bowl Heather Graham and get Grace Thompson caught at cover. Heath, miscuing to mid-off, had fallen to Glenn not long before.
When Thompson fell, Durham were 127-6 after 17, only for Rogers to impressively add important late runs.
Yorkshire openers Lauren Winfield-Hill and Erin Thomas both miscued to mid-on against Katie Levick and Trudy Johnson as the chase slipped to 27-2 inside five overs.
Glenn, in at number three, and Jess Jonassen steadied. But when acceleration was needed, they were unable to advance the White Rose cause.
Jonassen was bowled by fellow Australian overseas Graham to make it 59-3 and things unraveled quickly from there.
Sterre Kalis, in her last game before representing the Netherlands at the forthcoming T20 World Cup, holed out to long-on off Sophia Turner before Glenn was bowled playing back at Levick for 19.
That left the score at 67-5 in the 12th over.
Turner, who played for the old Headingley-based Northern Diamonds alongside the likes of Levick, Armitage and Winfield-Hill, later had Maddie Ward caught at long-on.
Yorkshire’s on-loan debutant Alice Clarke impressed with a consolatory 32, only to be bowled by Graham, who now has 12 wickets in the campaign.