Adil Rashid

By Gary Watton
May 11 2013

After that opening debacle against Sussex, Yorkshire have responded impressively in their next three County Championship encounters. Even though the Tykes were foiled by inclement weather (not for the first or last time in their history) in their latest skirmish with Somerset, a quartet of the team made significant contributions to our encouraging performance against the west country county.

Yet again the top order batsmen failed to pull their weight at the outset of our contest with Somerset. Gale, Jaques, and Lyth are all underperforming and sadly we've resorted to selecting Joe Sayers again. Regrettably the latter's party trick is to spend about half an hour at the crease, supposedly seeing off the new ball whilst accumulating a handful of runs and then exiting the stage for the comfort of the pavilion. However, arresting this depressing state of affairs was Yorkshire's dynamic middle order. First Gary Ballance recorded a century, and then he was quickly followed by the brilliant but inconsistent Adil Rashid who achieved his highest first-class score of 180. If young Rashid could bowl as well as he could bat, England would have no hesitation in employing him in the number six berth. Time is still on Adil's side, but so long as he remains an attacking bowler whose frequent wickets are bought at a considerable cost, then the national selectors will continue to shy away from this thoroughly talented but dreadfully uneconomical spinner.

Well, after our troops had amassed an encouraging 505 before Andrew Gale put Somerset out of their misery, we then made a great effort to achieve an innings defeat. Yorkshire's final day heroics were all the more remarkable, given the twin obstacles of unhelpful weather which reduced the available play and also a really strong Somerset batting line-up that included Trescothick, Compton, Hildreth, Petersen, and Buttler. Undaunted by the fact that time was not on our side, the home team's bowlers all gave Somerset a hard time on the final afternoon. Tim Bresnan contributed four wickets to the visitors' first innings demise while Jack Brooks blew away four Somerset wickets when they were following on.

The only detail missing from Yorkshire's endeavours was the small matter of a win, but knocking over six Somerset wickets in less than 25 overs at the conclusion of this one-sided draw ought to be a cause for renewed optimism that the white rose can flourish in English cricket's major garden.

YORKSHIRE versus Somerset; at Headingley; 7th-10th May; YORKSHIRE won the toss.

YORKSHIRE first innings: 505 for 9 declared (Rashid 180, Ballance 107, Pyrah 55; Trego 4-107; Kirby 3-119)

Somerset first innings: 252 (Petersen 54, Trescothick 53; Bresnan 4-76)

Somerset second innings: 61 for 6 (Brooks 4-22)

MATCH DRAWN