Six members of the Yorkshire Academy team to play Harrogate on Saturday 14th July had played in the Under 17s resounding victory over Derbyshire earlier in the week at the same Weetwood venue.
Hopefully confidence would be high against opponents who are unusually struggling near the bottom of the Yorkshire League North table.
Harrogate welcomed back leading bowler Tom Geeson-Brown after two weeks away attending weddings, but their bowling still looked a bit thin with one or two new names appearing. However they won the toss and batted first and were going along steadily until acting captain Ed Barnes produced an excellent ball to clean bowl Corrie Keable. Veteran Alexis Twigg, recently returned to Harrogate, was looking good with 28 before being caught behind by Harry Duke, deputising for the injured captain Ben Birkhead.
Wickets continued to fall at regular intervals until wicket keeper Ed Wilson and Ollie Horbury steadied the ship with a partnership of 54. Both went on to make half centuries, with Horbury impressing with an innings of 51 which included ten fours. For once the Yorkshire spin pair of the Sullivan brothers were not among the wickets, except for one by Josh, and they only bowled twelve overs between them.
This resulted in a very slow over rate by the battery of Yorkshire seamers and at the end of the innings the umpires were seen in deep discussion with the Yorkshire captain explaining that fifteen penalty runs had been awarded to Harrogate because of the slow rate. So the final score was extended to 258-9, which included 50 extras, including 31 wides as well as the penalty runs, but strangely enough no byes. Young Harry Duke was given a torrid team behind the stumps due to the stream of erratic wides.
Yorkshire batted consistently throughout their innings losing opener Wharton run out to a smart throw by keeper Wilson to hit the stumps at the bowler's end and then Revis to a one handed caught and bowled by Geeson-Brown. Tom Loten, as so often this season pulled things back with a resolute 55 and together with George Hill (20) and Bilal Anjum (40) kept Yorkshire well in the game.
The game seemed to be drifting towards a draw but the sixth wicket pair of Harry Duke and Ed Barnes put on 50 together in quick time and Yorkshire required just six to win off the final over.
Five singles brought the scores level and Harry Duke hit the final ball to the boundary to give the Academy a five wicket victory.
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