As the cricket season reaches its final stages lots of competitions are nearing completion. None more so than the Women's county championship which saw Yorkshire women scheduled to play two games at Harrogate last weekend.
Before that however an eventful Yorkshire Premier League game took place at Harrogate on Saturday 29th August. Their opponents were Cleethorpes and the twelve noon start gave several professional cricket watchers the opportunity of almost three hours cricket before the attraction of the Rugby League Cup Final on TV took over.
Harrogate started well after the early shock of losing both openers with the score on only 11 and captain George Ross with the total on 30. Tattersall, who has been in fine form for Harrogate all season, and Foster then put on a partnership of 111 and the home side seemed to be cruising. However Tattersall went for 69 and Foster 53 and the rest capitulated totally. 168-4 soon became 194 all out with 13 of the alloted 55 overs not used.
At this point the rugby league followers, including myself, dragged themselves away to follow the huge 50 points to nil victory for Leeds Rhinos over Hull Kingston Rovers. A great farewell for the two Leeds stalwarts Kevin Sinfield and Jamie Peacock, with our correspondent Brian Sanderson in attendance at Wembley.
Later in the evening we were all surprised to find out that Cleethorpes had achieved a very rapid victory by 8 wickets, knocking off the runs in only 34.3 overs, thanks mainly to Alex Osmond, the Lincolnshire county player, with a stunning 103 not out.
I managed to see the final stages of Adel v Tong Park Esholt in the Aire Wharfe league at my home ground, along with the sage of Adel, Reg Parker, who was not very happy with the home side's display. Despite restricting the visitors to 188-5, they were bowled out for 144 and lost by 44 runs. No batsman made more than 35 for Adel, prompting Reg, as usual, to say they don't practice enough. Wise words indeed!
Next day, Sunday 30th August, was the first women's county game between Yorkshire and Surrey at Harrogate with an 11 a.m. start. Yorkshire more so than Surrey were missing several of their England players engaged in the one day series with Australia.
This showed in a somewhat turgid batting display, held together by opener and wicket
keeper Good with 56. The rest struggled against some tight spin bowling especially by Clark who had figures of 10-2-27-3 and Lakhtaria with 10-2-21-1. So a total of 174-6 in the fifty overs seemed a bit below par.
Yorkshire Women in action at Harrogate
However confidence in the Yorkshire camp was high especially when the first four batsmen were all out for single figures to the opening attack of Spragg and Levick. Then a middle order recovery first by Smith with 35 and then the bowling hero Clarke, who was only out in the final over for 51 going for a big hit which would have won the game. She was well caught at mid on and the incoming batsman required three to win off the last ball of the match. Only a single was possible and the jubilant Yorkshire girls celebrated victory by just one run.
Under 11 girls in action on Harrogate No 2 ground
Team manager Sue Haley was a bit disappointed that they had not bowled the opposition out or scored enough to obtain either maximum batting or bowling points, taking only 16 of the maximum 18 available. Yorkshire were due to play close rivals Sussex the following day, again at Harrogate, but after overnight and morning rain the game was abandoned eventually around 2 p.m. and both teams left pointless. The poor Sussex girls facing a very long journey home.
My understanding of the league table is that Kent, having played all their games are top with 105 points, with Yorkshire on 89 points with one game (home to Lancashire) to play and Sussex are third with 87 points again with one game to play.
So a very tight finish to the season in prospect with Yorkshire needing 17 points to overtake Kent. The vital match with bottom team Lancashire will be played at Harrogate at 11 a.m. on Sunday 13th September.
Other news items are that the planned memorial game for Mick Bourne at Arthington on 6th September has been postponed until a later date, to be decided. This was due to the amount of other cricket being played in the area on Sunday. Another fixture to add to the list is Yorkshire over 50s v Staffordshire over 50s at Kibworth in Leicestershire in the national county final. Good luck to them and to Yorkshire at Headingley, to the Academy in their cup final at York and to Cumberland in the Minor Counties play off final at Carlisle.
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