A mixed bag this week starting with two Yorkshire League North games over the Bank Holiday weekend. Yorkshire Academy hosted Castleford on Saturday at Weetwood and Harrogate entertained Scarborough on Monday. Nothing much at stake in either game, except for the very faint possibility of Harrogate being relegated, as the premier league season nears it's conclusion but plenty of good cricket to watch.
Castleford under the captaincy of David Wainwright, former county cricketer, who seems to have been with the club for ever, looked a useful outfit, despite having to call upon veteran Andrew Bourke, another long serving member of the Castleford club. Good innings from Wainwright, wicketkeeper Eitan Litvin and Chris Briggs combined to give the visitors a useful total of 202 all out.
The Academy were missing several regulars all selected for the Loughborough regional under 17s competition and their reply seemed to get off to rather a slow start, with useful contributions for Wharton, Ramkumar and Loten, the captain still only just returning to form after a long injury lay off.
However George Hill gave the innings more impetus with a splendid 84, including nine fours and a six. However with the overs running out and only 19 required for victory he went down the pitch to the wily Morrison, who saw him coming and bowled it wide for an excellent stumping by Litvin to clinch victory in the end by just nine runs.
Three run outs had not contributed to the Academy cause and the middle order collapse cost them dear. Morrison's spell of 13-1-54-3 proved decisive and he got excellent support at the end from the slow left armer Jack Young who took 2-55. Wainwright was his usual economical self but for once took a back seat to his younger colleagues.
In Monday's game at Harrogate, Josh Atkinson was the mainstay of the home club's innings against Scarborough with 62 and the final total of 195 seemed somewhat below par with Linden Gray the best bowler with 5-54. Scarborough seemed to be coasting towards victory with an opening stand of 89 between skipper Sam Drury and Darren Harland but when Drury was out for 58 wickets began to fall with a clatter. Sri Lankan Ishan Abeysekara started the collapse with 5-49 and Scarborough were finished off by Tom Geeson-Brown's three wickets to be all out for 170. Victory for Harrogate by 25 runs and thoughts of relegation could now just about be forgotten.
Tuesday and Thursday were spent at York watching Yorkshire seconds taking on Surrey seconds in a game seriously affected by rain on the second day. This resulted in some manipulation on Thursday morning with Yorkshire declaring on 39-1 and Surrey batting for just four overs to add 21 more runs to their first innings score of 326-5, thus setting Yorkshire 309 to win. This never really looked likely despite good efforts from Waite with 45 and Loten 42. The star for Surrey was slow left armer Moriarty (not a character from Sherlock Holmes) who took 6-71 and outshone his better known colleague Virdi on this occasion. Yorkshire all out for 216 and Surrey won comfortably.
We were lucky with the weather on Wednesday travelling to Elland cricket ground, near Huddersfield for an Under 19 game between Yorkshire and Lancashire. Despite a drizzly start and a short stoppage just before lunch almost a full day's play was possible unlike the wash out after lunch at York. A modest crowd included several well known professional cricket watchers, including the inimitable Blackpool Ken, whose amazing knowledge of all levels of cricket in the North of England together with public transport timetables is a thing of wonder.
It was very much Lancashire's day on day one of this two day game in the six counties' competition which is not funded by ECB and therefore gets very little publicity and full scorecards never seem to be available. However Lancashire dominated proceedings against a hastily assembled Yorkshire side and totalled 358-8 declared with wicket keeper Owen Feakes from Greenmount cricket club making 138 not out.
The following day, when we returned to York, Yorkshire were really humiliated at Elland when bowled out first for 158 and then following on all out for just 70. Lancashire convincing victors by an innings and 130 runs and with Middlesex unable to clinch victory in their match, were declared winners of the six counties trophy for the second year in succession. Full marks to them and having seen both their under 17s side as well as the under 19s it is obvious that there is a lot of local talent coming through. One can only hope that some of them will actually reach first team level, which seems rather unlikely in view of the current policy of buying in players from elsewhere. Something that Yorkshire of course are now unfortunately emulating.
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