Brown Hits Out

By Gary Watton
July 4 2015

On an evening when Britain's Heather Watson was a gallant loser to the formidable Serena Williams, so the Vikings were gallant losers in their rather unlikely pursuit of 232. In truth, Yorkshire's batsmen cannot be faulted for this latest in a long line of Twenty20 setbacks. The blame lies squarely at the door of the faultering bowling unit which was despatched to all corners of Old Trafford, and beyond, by a dynamic home team, inspired by the considerable efforts of Karl Brown and Ashwell Prince. Also Arron Lilley bowled quite well for the hosts, but the Vikings batted against him like he was Dennis Lillee.

Regrettably, the bowling of Bresnan, Patterson, and Pyrah (three experienced bowlers who should know better) was mercilessly demolished. This failing triumvirate were smashed for 130 runs off a mere nine overs. Unfortunately, where big Tim was once a leading light at bowling in limited-overs cricket for county and country, his recent outings have been humiliations. The big guy did at least atone for conceding 29 runs from twelve deliveries by once more cashing in on his red-hot form with the bat, as he provided more substantial resistance to the unstoppable hosts than the rest of his colleagues. I'm probably beginning to sound like a broken record, but the inadequate Glenn Maxwell has been a catastrophic signing, when compared to the likes of Gayle and McCullum shining elsewhere.

As I have already stated in previous weeks, the Tykes may just have to look themselves in the mirror and accept that they are not anywhere near as good at Twenty20 as they like to think that they are. Martyn Moxon might suggest that with many of our group rivals defeating one another that qualification to the knockout stages is wide open, but the misfiring Vikings are simply clutching at straws. The current northern group positions don't lie. The Vikings are eighth out of nine for a reason - perhaps lots of reasons.

Our hallowed imports have not earned their huge salaries. Our bowling is weak. We have far too many good players absent on England duty. Worst of all, the Vikings have lost close matches against Durham and Lancashire and had to settle for a tie against Leicestershire. There were too many critical points dropped in those skirmishes. Jonny Bairstow and Aaron Finch can talk ahead of a fixture about how we need to do this and we must do that, but the words are empty, when the subsequent performance does not match the pre-match hot air.

I guess that the bottom line is that Yorkshire CCC remains a schizophrenic county, in that they underperform in the Twenty20 while overpowering everyone, frequently by innings victories, in the County Championship. This lopsided characteristic is most baffling. Anyhow, the time is fast approaching where the impotent Vikings will require snookers in order to progress to the last four, so I for one would like to see new and young players blooded for the remaining few outings of the campaign, namely Gibson and Shaw and Waite and Wainman. Let's face it: they can't do much worse than the current inept first team. Oh and just to underline how underwhelming our Twenty20 adventure has been, take a look at the bottom at who are our best performers thus far in the latest averages. It doesn't make for pretty reading!

Lancashire Lightning versus YORKSHIRE VIKINGS; at Manchester; Friday the 3rd of July 2015. YORKSHIRE VIKINGS won the toss.

Lancashire Lightning: 231 for four (off twenty overs)

Prince c Bairstow b Pyrah 59 (104-2)

Horton c Gale b Maxwell 27 (76-1)

Brown c Maxwell b Finch 69 (169-3)

Davies c Bresnan b Fisher 22 (187-4)

Croft not out 27

Livingstone not out 13

Extras: 14

YORKSHIRE VIKINGS: 202 for eight (off twenty overs)

Gale run out (Lilley) 35 (91-3)

Finch c Lilley b Parry 33 (64-1)

Maxwell c Davies b Parry 1 (67-2)

Bairstow b Croft 26 (102-5)

Hodd c Croft b Parry 0 (93-4)

Leaning c Croft b Lilley 16 (121-6)

Bresnan c Prince b Lilley 51 (194-8)

Pyrah c Jarvis b Lilley 3 (140-7)

Middlebrook not out 29

Patterson not out 1

Extras: 7

Parry 4-0-29-3; Lilley 4-0-31-3

Lancashire Lightning win by 29 runs. Lancashire Lightning two points, YORKSHIRE VIKINGS no points.

CURRENT GROUP STANDINGS:

Warwickshire - fourteen points from nine matches

Worcestershire - twelve points from nine matches

Lancashire - ten points from ten matches

Durham - ten points from ten matches

Leicestershire - ten points from ten matches

Northamptonshire - nine points from nine matches

Nottinghamshire - eight points from ten matches

YORKSHIRE - seven points from nine matches

Derbyshire - six points from ten matches

BEST BOWLERS (minimum criteria of ten wickets)

Fisher - 19.1; ten wickets; best bowling: 5-22

No other Viking has even managed to take ten wickets.....yet.

BATSMEN (minimum criteria of one hundred runs)

Bresnan - 41; 123 runs; highest score: 51

Leaning - 35; 175 runs; highest score: 48 not out

Gale - 31.25; 250 runs; highest score: 68 not out

Bairstow - 30.17; 181 runs; highest score: 40 not out

Maxwell - 21.57; 151 runs; highest score: 92 not out