Yorkshire under 18s win Northern Group.

 Posted by Tony Hutton

The Northern Group of the Under 18s county championship came to a conclusion yesterday with wins for Derbyshire over Durham at Brandon and Lancashire over Leicestershire at Uppingham School. Yorkshire managed to win the group after quite an exciting finish to their drawn game with Nottinghamshire at Weetwood, Leeds. The major theme of this competition has been of high scoring batsmen and this certainly continued throughout the last games.

This was very much the case at Brandon where Derbyshire's openers put on 376 for the first wicket against Durham. Sheryaar Ali making 188 and Mitchell Wagstaff 198. Durham, despite a valiant 392 in their second innings could not match this and lost by an innings and 23 runs. At Uppingham Lancashire had first innings centuries from Keshana Fonseka and Jack Carney in their ten wicket win over Leicestershire.

Meanwhile at Weetwood Yorkshire's captain Yash Vagadia, who had made centuries in each innings against Lancashire at Widnes last week, followed by 179 not out for Hartlepool on Monday, had a relative failure with 62 for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire. Top scorer for Yorkshire was Noah Chapman from the Lightcliffe club with an impressive 74, which included thirteen fours. His partnership of 77 for the ninth wicket with Charlie McMurran (40) helped Yorkshire to a first innings score of 305.

Yash Vagadia (Yorkshire)

The two Nottinghamshire spinners Drew Owen (4-81) and Farhan Ahmed (3-31) were the pick of the bowlers and a recent addition to the Yorkshire side, Harvey Round from the Haxey club, near Doncaster, soon impressed with his opening spell. He dismissed both Notts openers with the total on 19-2 and some time later got rid of top batsman Ben Wilcox (already a double centurion in this competition) to make it 68-3. However that was to prove Yorkshire's last success for some considerable time.  

Freddie McCann reaches his century.

The next pair of captain Sam Seecharan and Freddie McCann proceeded to take the game away from Yorkshire completely. They added 220 during which they both passed the century mark before McCann was out for 111. Seecharan, from Tonbridge School in Kent, had not finished yet and thanks to good support from the middle order, in which Holland (36), Sylvester (30), Hatton-Lowe (45) and Ahmed (20) all did well, he batted on to complete his double century, at which point Nottinghamshire declared on 519-9 shortly before the end of day two.

Double centurion Sam Seecharan.

The final day saw a backs to the wall effort by Yorkshire to avoid defeat, although already assured of their place as group winners. Star of the show during the morning session was Alex Cree who had reached 98 not out when lunch came at one p.m. He may have thought it would still be 1.15 as on the previous two days. However the interval obviously unsettled him and he was caught behind when play resumed without adding to his score. Meanwhile the situation was tailor made for Noah Kelly, whose club Driffield have just won the Yorkshire Premier League North.

Alex Cree batting for Yorkshire.

The left hander, another recent double centurion of course, has just the right powers of concentration to play for a draw, which he demonstrated for over two hours in a marathon innings of just 13 runs from 110 balls. Harry Allinson was forced to retire hurt after being hit on the helmet and there was much debate as to whether Yorkshire would be allowed a concussion substitute batter. Bennison and Chapman both fell to Drew Owen and defeat looked well on the cards for Yorkshire.

Nottinghamshire's two centurions fielding in the slips.

Not to be fazed however Isaac Light, who opens the batting for Harrogate, came in at number seven and went onto the attack. He completed a brisk half century before being caught, again off Owen, for a splendid 61 from 68 balls. Nottinghamshire were in sight of victory, but with Yorkshire's slender lead growing only slowly numbers nine and ten some how managed to survive as the last hour began.

Yorkshire's lead eventually crawled into the nineties as the last sixteen overs gradually ticked away and finally when the target had reached 98 to win in effectively seven overs, with still the substitute batsman to come, the visitors called it a day and shook hands on the draw as the Weetwood season came to an end in pleasant early evening sunshine. Certainly a competitive game of cricket throughout, which will have given some of the younger players good experience of how hard three day cricket can be.

1st September sees the last day of cricket at Weetwood this season.

So an excellent competition, which sadly cannot find time for a play off between the other group winners. Worcestershire won the Midlands and West Group and Middlesex won the Southern Group. Finally just a few names to look for in the future amongst the many high scorers thrown up by this competition. Noah Thain 293 for Essex v Kent, Reehan Edavalath, Worcester v Somerset, Tim Lloyd 200 not out Surrey v Sussex and Nathan Fernandes 167 Middlesex v Hampshire.