Yorkshire CCC’s T20 Blast Roses clash hopes hit after key quartet stood down over Covid test

So proclaimed a statement from Yorkshire CCC some 45 minutes before last night’s game. It turned out that one of the players’ family members potentially had coronavirus symptoms, and while that player awaited his own test result, the other players were withdrawn as a precaution, having come into contact with the player in question outside Yorkshire’s cricketing “bubble”.

Andrew Gale, the Yorkshire first team coach, said later: “We were hoping that the player would have his test result back, which would have enabled the others who had been in contact to play as well. They were all sat outside the ground until 5.30 still waiting on a text (result), but unfortunately it didn’t come.

“With the guidelines in place, the club doctors and physio said the four lads couldn’t take part unless the player tested negative. Hopefully, the text will come in the morning.”

The upshot was that Yorkshire were seriously depleted, with captain Willey and batsman Kohler-Cadmore among their gun players in this format. It was no surprise, therefore, that something of a makeshift Yorkshire team succumbed as a result, losing by six wickets to Lancashire in a defeat that probably means that they need to win their last three matches to maintain hope of reaching the quarter-finals.

After acting captain Adam Lyth won the toss, Yorkshire scored 145-9 from their 20 overs, Lyth top-scoring with 36 and pace bowler Luke Wood and leg-spinner Matt Parkinson each taking three wickets.

Lancashire slipped to 77-4 in reply, but they comfortably closed out a win that consolidated second place in the North Group and left Yorkshire in fourth.

On a day when the government’s so-called ‘Rule of Six’ came into operation, preventing social gatherings of more than six people due to the rising number of coronavirus cases, Yorkshire started the game by applying cricket’s ‘Rule of Six’.

Harry Brook pulled a six off the spinner Steven Croft in an opening over that disappeared for 15, and Lyth followed suit when he picked up a delivery from pace bowler Tom Bailey high over the backward-square boundary in a second over that also cost 15.

Perhaps carried away by this rampant start, Brook – promoted to open in place of Kohler-Cadmore – tried to whack the cover off the second delivery of the third over, bowled by Wood, and spliced it to short third-man, where Tom Hartley took a magnificent diving catch at full stretch. It should have been 30-2 off the next ball, but that ball burst through Bailey’s grasp when Lyth crashed it away through mid-wicket.

Lyth was missed for a second time on 35 when he swept left-arm spinner Hartley to short fine-leg, where Danny Lamb grassed a sitter. But Lyth had added only one more when he was lured down the pitch by one from Hartley that drifted across him and smartly stumped by Alex Davies, leaving Yorkshire 78-2 in the ninth.

In balmy conditions, with the sun beating down from a clear blue sky at the start of the match, and with the temperature up in the mid-20s, Dawid Malan showed his skill with successive boundaries off Liam Livingstone, slapping the leg-spinner through the covers and back down the ground.

Released from the England “bubble” to play in the game, Malan was just getting going with 27 to his credit when he was third out at 87 in the 11th over, lofting Parkinson’s third delivery to deep mid-wicket.

George Hill slapped Parkinson’s fifth ball to cover, and Parkinson claimed his third wicket when James Wharton, a 19-year-old debutant, picked out the same man in the same position.

Parkinson then suffered one of the worst dropped catches one could possibly witness at this level, Bailey putting down Mat Pillans when he looped the ball gently out to point.

Pillans did not linger, stumped off Livingstone as he tried to hit straight, and Wood returned to capture two wickets in four balls when Jordan Thompson was lbw playing around a full delivery and a driving Will Fraine caught behind. The other wicket was that of Ben Coad, caught at long-on off Danny Lamb, on a night when Yorkshire were stymied by spin in particular, managing only 26 runs between overs eight and 14.

Yorkshire gave themselves a smidgen of hope with two wickets in the Lancashire powerplay, Pillans having Livingstone caught behind and Thompson removing Davies with the aid of a catch at deep backward-square.

Lancashire fell to 76-3 when Dane Vilas played off-spinner Jack Shutt back up the pitch, thought about a single and changed his mind, with Croft run-out as he passed him running to the batsman’s end.

Coad bowled Josh Bohannon for a duck in the next over, making it ‘game on’ again of sorts, but the target was just that bit too low to defend, Vilas (44 from 36) and Rob Jones (38 from 35) able to work the ball around without taking unnecessary risks during an unbroken stand of 71.