We have been amazingly lucky with the weather so far this season and were watching our twenty second day of cricket when the rains finally arrived at Harrogate on Thursday 25th April to curtail day two of the Second XI championship game between Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. The rain also returned yesterdy and condemned the game to a draw when Yorkshire were on the verge of declaring their second innings to set Notts a target to chase on the final afternoon.
The game had begun on Wednesday with Yorkshire batting. The veteran left arm seamer Mark Footitt, who seems to have been around for ever, took an early wicket having youngster Finlay Bean, from York, lbw for eight. Fraine made a solid 35 but once again the main man proved to be Academy captain Tom Loten, who has been among the runs on a regular basis already. This time he made 75 before becoming becalmed in the seventies and falling lbw to Notts skipper James, who was the seventh bowler to be tried.
This precipitated something of a late order collapse in which Footitt returned to see off the tail very quickly, finishing with five wickets for 51 (four of which were lbw). There were three other leg before decisions to very much a left arm bowling attack with Footitt, Wood, Cohen and Patterson-White all falling into that category. Footitt just missed out on a hat trick, dismissing Barnes and Warner with successive deliveries. Yorkshire all out for 278,
The next day saw Ed Barnes missing and being replaced by Dominic Leech of the Academy. We later learned that Barnes had been dispatched to Sussex on loan and was playing for their first team today at Lord's. On day two Notts were fairly rapidly losing wickets after a delayed start and they finished the day, after a another rain break during the afternoon, on 137-9 when the rains returned in the early evening.
Yesterday morning Warner took the final wicket by clean bowling Cohen, knocking back his middle stump with the first ball of the day, so those few spectators who had not been paying full attention were rather surprised to see the players returning to the pavilion so promptly. Yorkshire's second innings began in rather pedestrian style, after the early loss of Bean, and Fraine in particular seemed somewhat out of touch in the very windy conditions. Loten began to push things on a bit and got to 43 not out when the rain returned shortly after lunch. Yorkshire had got to 87-1 and were contemplating a declaration but the rain continued and the game was abandoned as a draw in mid-afternoon.
However, our cricketing day was far from over. We were able to catch two century makers for Somerset in their game against Essex on Sky Sports and finally saw the exciting conclusion to the game at Headingley on live streaming, when the game between Yorkshire and Derbyshire ended in a tie. Full marks to the visitors, particularly skipper Billy Godleman, but again questions must be asked of Yorkshire's current policy of importing players from far and wide instead of sticking to their home grown players.
No comments:
Post a Comment