Wednesday 29th August took us to Todmorden cricket club on the Yorkshire/Lancashire border. This favourite venue for lots of professional cricket watchers from both counties has been sadly neglected in terms of representative matches this season. Often the venue for both county second elevens in the past, but neither county gave them a game this season. Fortunately today saw day one of a two day game between the two counties' under nineteens sides.
This is a fixture in an 'unoffical' six counties competition, which gets little publicity both before and after the games, with never a full scorecard available. However Lancashire, the prime movers in the competition, do always provide an excellent match programme from which it is possible to identify most of the players, although the bowlers can only be discovered by shouts of encouragement from their team mates.
The Lancashire v Yorkshire under nineteen game is also played each season for the Sanderson Cup which goes back a long time. As far back as when Mike Atherton played as a leg spin bowler to some effect in a game played on the old Yorkshire Bank ground in Moortown, Leeds. With Yorkshire's first, second and under 17 teams all engaged elsewhere, it looked a below strength white rose side today.
This soon proved to be the case as Lancashire took early wickets, three of them from opening bowler Ollie Sutton from Formby cricket club. Jack Morley, the left arm spinner from Heywood, who we have already seen playing for Lancashire seconds, also took 3-58 towards the end of the innings. The backbone of Yorkshire's innings came from Dan Revis, who occupied the crease for some time in making a painstaking score of 37. Tailender Tom Baxter from Huddersfield showed some resistance with a top score of 39 but Yorkshire were dismissed for a well under par 176.
Lancashire's opening pair of skipper Taylor Cornall, from Lytham, and Owais Shah, from Highfield made batting look easy. After a slowish start they soon took control and batted throughout the final session of the day without being dismissed and put Lancashire very much in the driving seat.
The following day, after we had moved on elsewhere, these two both went on to score centuries, Cornall making 113 and Shah 101. Lancashire declared on 321-4 and thanks mainly due to Jack Morley bowled Yorkshire out for only 113 in their second innings. Morley very much the main man this time with 6-50. So a complete win for Lancashire, quite unusual in a two day fixture, which gave them sufficient points to win the six counties competition for 2018. Congratulations to them but it must be said that Yorkshire were not in the same class. Many thanks to Gareth Hudson and David Moss for information on the scores and league table. No need to mention that Yorkshire ended bottom of the six counties table.
Thursday 30th August and we were once more back up to Riverside, Chester le Street, to see day two of the championship match between Durham and Northants. Good job we chose to go on day two of this scheduled four day match as it was all over with a convincing seven wicket win for the visitors before the end of the day. Durham had been bowled out for 129 on day one with former Lancashire man Luke Procter the main destroyer with 5-33. Northants fared little better against the seam attack of Rushworth and Salisbury, but 60 from skipper Alex Wakeley and 47 from wicket keeper Rossington got them to 198 and a lead of 69.
Durham fared equally badly in the second innings, only 50 from Cameron Steel held the innings together for any length of time and although we had hoped to see new recruit Alex Lees from Yorkshire make runs he was out for only nine, lbw to another Yorkshire exile Ben Sanderson. Collingwood made 27 but no one else lasted long against the three man pace attack of Sanderson, Buck and Gleeson who shared the wickets. Durham all out 133 and Northants only required 65 to win.
They lost three wickets in the process, two to new Indian spinner Axar Patel getting two of them. Ben Curran,the middle brother of the three Currans, made his county debut for Northants but only got eleven runs in each innings. We have seen him score heavily for MCC Young cricketers and are sure he will make his mark in due course. A comfortable win by seven wickets for Northants but everything looks a struggle for Durham at the moment.
Friday, perhaps with some reluctance, we were back at Headingley again for day three of Yorkshire's game with Somerset. Once more unto the building site dear friends with noise a plenty for the first part of the day although the workers did seem to drift away during Friday afternoon. We must say that the stand seems to have gone up in record time and is already nearing completion.
Somerset were already well in charge of the game having scored 399 in their first innings. Yorkshire were 292-7 at the close of day two and did not last long on the third morning. All eyes were on Andrew Hodd, who is retiring at the end of the season. The Yorkshire wicket keeper had been re-called from a second team game at Taunton at the last minute due to an injury to Tattersall and stood on 84 not out overnight. Everyone on the ground wished him well and were hoping he would make a notable farewell century.
Everyone that is apart from stand in skipper David Willey, who immediately made a wild T20 like swish to be caught in the slips instead of giving Hodd the support he needed. The poor man seemed to give up the ghost and also departed caught at slip for 85 off the admirable Gregory, who had a great all round match. Hodd received a great ovation from the crowd. In his time at Yorkshire he has won over most of the supporters, despite the serious handicap of being a southerner.
Yorkshire were all out for 320, which was 79 behind. A sudden clatter of wickets at the start of Somerset's second innings brought fresh hope to the home support, but it did not last long 29-3 becoming 164-4 as the admirable Hildreth and captain Abell together batted Yorkshire out of the game. Hildreth made 72 and Abell finished on 132 not out as the visitors declared just before the close on 339-7.
A target of over 400 looked beyond Yorkshire even before they lost two wickets for eight runs before the close. Not many turned up on the final day for the last rites, when despite 42 from nightwatchman Shaw and 51 from Williamson, on his final appearance of the season, Yorkshire were bowled out for 194. Gregory 4-33 and Jamie Overton taking four wickets each to bring Somerset victory by 224 runs. Yorkshire are now in real danger of relegation.
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