Tuesday 16th July and off to Stamford Bridge to see Yorkshire second eleven play Warwickshire, this time in a three day championship game. This is an under rated competition already nearing it's conclusion for this season. There are two divisions, north and south, with nine teams in the northern section who play just eight matches and ten teams in the southern group, due to the addition of MCC Young Cricketers. At the end of the season the two top teams meet in a three day grand final.
This was Yorkshire's seventh game with just one more away to Northamptonshire still to be played. Currently Lancashire, Leicestershire and Yorkshire are very close in the top three positions. Always a pleasure to visit this very popular second eleven venue which for some reason missed out on a three day game last season. The amazing tombola stall with endless prizes available was in full swing and is really the main attraction, if we discount the wonderful bacon sandwiches. It was very late in the day when my numbers came up although the Foster's lager T shirt was not as welcome as the bottle of Pinot Grigot.
There was some debate as to when Yorkshire played their first second eleven game at this ground. It took some considerable research to finally settle on September 2000, when Yorkshire seconds played Hampshire in a game which the visitors won by 88 runs. One of our number, who was there, remembers it best for trying to fill in the scorecard when someone was caught Brunschweiler bowled Stephenson.
Today Yorkshire won the toss and batted. The innings was held together by James Wharton whose marathon innings of 59 took three and three quarter hours. Never quite in touch, he stayed there and showed the powers of concentration required by an opening batsman in proper cricket. His partner Anjam went for 27 falling during a good spell of quick bowling by Logan Hughes, a young man from Staffordshire, who also dismissed Tom Loten, on return from injury, and George Hill, about to join England Under 19s.
Matthew Waite added a quickfire 40, before Jack Leaning coming in at number six increased the tempo and ended up with top score of 75. Ben Birkhead also made a very useful fifty and Yorkshire ended on a very reasonable 327 all out. One of the highlights of the day was a fine spell of bowling by that man again, 15 year old Jacob Bethell, whose figures of 17-1-40-1 were very tidy indeed.
On day two Warwickshire struggled after losing two wickets cheaply overnight, but opener Hammond and wicket keeper Mellor put on a century partnership mainly against the Yorkshire seam attack which showed little variation during the morning's play. Many could not understand why Logan had not bowled, but it later emerged that he had a back problem and was advised not to bowl by the strength and conditioning coach, who now has the final say in who can do what.
The other young spinner, Jack Shutt, did not appear until well after lunch and again it was hard to understand why Jack Leaning had bowled so many overs. Barnes took two wickets to finally end Mellor's innings of 66, after Waite had taken his third wicket to remove Hammond for 59. Shutt then finished off the tail to end with the day's best figures of 4-43.
We were not present yesterday (day three) when Yorkshire declared their second innings on 172-9 and then bowled Warwickshire out for 179 to win by 88 runs. Shutt again ended with four more wickets. I understand that the highlight of the day was yet again produced by young Mr Bethell, who managed to take three wickets in an over and to finish with splendid figures of 5-42 before Yorkshire declared. I am sure we will hear much more of this young man in the years to come.
With twenty four points from this game Yorkshire are just one point behind Leicestershire, who also had an easy win. Lancashire, who are in the last day of their game at Notts today have so far been delayed by the weather and so are unlikely to get maximum points and will now be in third place with all three teams having one more game to play.
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