Yorkshire Carnegie v Northants Steelbacks: Weather causes mischief for T20 advocates

Last winter, the game's administrators decided to cram the first half of this year's County Championship into the opening two months of the season to accommodate a vastly-expanded Twenty20 Cup.

The idea was to ensure the Twenty20 fixtures were played at the height of summer when the weather is supposedly at its best, resulting in sizeable attendances and significant income.

So what happens?

The weather for the Championship in April/May is near flawless, much to the amusement of traditionalists everywhere, while conditions for Twenty20 have thus far been miserable, resulting in generally disappointing crowds.

In a further blow to the Twenty20 brigade, Champions League organisers decided to arrange this year's money-spinning tournament before the end of the English season, thus denying counties who have invested heavily in Twenty20 specialists the chance to compete for a multi-million cash prize by reaching the final of the Twenty20 Cup.

One could be forgiven for thinking there is a message in there somewhere to those who have meddled with the four-day competition and who want to reduce the number of Championship games from 16 per county to 14 or 12, a move that should be fought at all costs.

Such sentiments sprang mischievously to mind at Headingley Carnegie yesterday, where Yorkshire's Twenty20 game with Northamptonshire was decimated by more unseasonable weather.

By the time play was called off at 5.10pm, with Yorkshire 51-4 in reply to the visitors' 151-7 and 14 runs behind on Duckworth-Lewis calculations, the cheerleaders had long sought shelter from the pouring rain and the sky was as black as the ace of spades.

Only 3,000 hardy souls ventured out on a gloomy afternoon that had been designated as Ladies' Day at Headingley, which sadly proved little more than a collection of soggy boutiques and saturated stalls.

Defeat sent Yorkshire bottom of the North Group, albeit with a game in hand on their nearest rivals.

Andrew Gale's men have now played a quarter of their group matches and, thanks to the interminably long nature of this year's tournament, still have 12 games left to force their way into a top-four position that would send them into the quarter-finals.

To achieve that, Yorkshire will need to improve on this display, which lacked the lustre of last Thursday's splendid nine-wicket win against Durham.

Against a Northamptonshire side who had lost three of their first four games, and whose batting generally looked as uninspiring as the weather, Yorkshire played well in patches but not with the type of consistency that will be needed to reach the knockout stages.

After the visitors raced to 49-0 in the sixth over after winning the toss, Yorkshire did well to reduce Northamptonshire to

87-5 in the 13th over.

For that they were indebted to Adil Rashid and Richard Pyrah, who took 3-23 and 1-19 respectively and whose efforts looked to have swung the game in their favour.

But Northamptonshire hit 53 from the last five overs, with 17 arriving off the final over from Clint McKay.

The Australian pace bowler is now unavailable to Yorkshire until the end of the NatWest one-day series and it would perhaps not be impudent to suggest they are unlikely to miss him.

Yorkshire's best Twenty20 bowler at present is Rashid, who produced identical figures to those against Durham.

On the evidence of what we have seen from Rashid so far, it is a crying shame for Yorkshire that fellow spinner David Wainwright is struggling for form, for they would potentially make a troublesome combination.

After Steve Patterson claimed the first wicket yesterday by having Chaminda Vaas brilliantly caught by a diving Gale at mid-off, Rashid got to work beneath the leaden skies.

Bowling from the Kirkstall Lane end, he lured Niall O'Brien out of his crease to leave Northamptonshire 67-2 before Pyrah claimed the key wicket of Lou Vincent, caught behind.

The visitors slumped to 87-5 when Rashid had Nicky Boje caught on the square-leg boundary and then bowled Rob White.

But Northamptonshire recovered through captain Andrew Hall, who hit an unbeaten 31 from 19 balls with four fours to lift his side to a competitive score.

Yorkshire lost Jacques Rudolph to the fifth ball of their reply, the South African brilliantly caught by David Willey running back at mid-on off Vaas.

Gale holed out to mid-off and Gibbs and Brophy edged behind as Jack Brooks took three quick wickets to knock the stuffing out of Yorkshire's chase.

We will never know whether Anthony McGrath and Jonathan Bairstow – unbeaten at the end – would have masterminded an unlikely recovery, but Yorkshire had it all to do when the rain arrived.

The result heaps added pressure on Thursday's money-spinning home tie against Lancashire when Yorkshire will hope not only for a better performance but, just as significantly for a club 18m in debt, better weather.

DISPLAY OF THE DAY

Adil Rashid

The Yorkshire leg-spinner returned figures of 4-0-23-3 for the second game running on an otherwise disappointing day for his side. If only fellow spinner David Wainwright were in such form, the duo would pose batsmen a real problem.