On Sunday I turned up at St George's Road Harrogate in plenty of time for a match scheduled to start at 12:30 between Harrogate and Aston Hall, a team from near Sheffield who play in Yorkshire Premier South. To my surprise a game was underway, ten overs old, but not the advertised fare for after making several enquiries I established that this was Yorkshire Under 15 B entertaining Warwickshire Under 16 B. What of the advertised match? That had been transferred to Aston Hall with Harrogate having taken a much weakened side.
As is often the case where all 22 players are too young to drive there was a good crowd in attendance and I enjoyed conversation with some of the Bears' supporters including a man who had taught Moen Ali. 'My wife taught Paul McCartney's son' is hardly tit for tat so I kept that under wraps. Tony and Jennifer arrived also labouring under the same misinformation as me but settled down to watch Yorkshire batting. Plenty of spin bowling on view but progress was fairly slow. Things did speed up and the innings closed on 235 for 4, Kyle Welsh top scorer on 83 not out.
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Warwickshire set off a much faster lick than had Yorkshire but lost enough wickets to keep things interesting. 59 from Haydn Evans and 43 not out form Nicholas Bland saw them home with plenty of overs to spare but with their ninth pair at the crease. Meanwhile Harrogate had lost by nine wickets and Aston progress in the Rudgate Cup.
On Saturday I eschewed the lure of football and travelled to Headingley for the England v New Zealand Women's ODI. Its international status brings with it certain trappings, bag searches, and, for those who like that sort of thing klackers, four/six cards and headbands. All of which I politely declined as did David Thorpe who joined me in our usual seats in the North east Upper. A decent crowd, somewhere between about 1000 and 1500 and largely female, saw England bat first after the non appearance of the national anthem, something which severely upset a lady behind us. She should move to Uruguay, theirs last nearly seven minutes.
Aided by some modest fielding and fifteen wides England posted 290 for 5 with all their batters getting runs, top scorers Amy Jones and Heather Knight each with 63. Best bowler was leg spinner Amelia Kerr. With a fairly straight forward chance dropped early on while Bates and Devine got NZ's reply off to a good start it looked as though England's fielding might also disappoint but a brilliant effort from Sophie Ecclestone raised the bar and several of the New Zealand women went as the result of very good catches. Rate required gradually fell behind rate achieved and once Devine was out the rest of the innings collapsed dismally to finish on 148., not long after those who had spent much of the afternoon in the Long Room watching the football.
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