Report: Bears Men vs Yorkshire Vikings, Vitality Blast

Bears condemned Yorkshire to a third successive Vitality Blast defeat as they handed them a six-wicket beating at Edgbaston.

The Bears registered their first win of the campaign after Yorkshire, put in, totalled 164 for seven, having lurched from 139 for two to 146 for seven in 17 balls. Dawid Malan (69 not out, 48 balls) and James Wharton (39, 23) set a solid foundation, but the middle and lower orders were scalped by the spinners as Danny Briggs, Jake Lintott and Moeen Ali each took two wickets.

Alex Davies (65, 45) and Tom Latham (44, 35) then added 103 for the first wicket, and though Matt Milnes (three for 23) induced a wobble, the Bears reached 168 for four with six balls to spare.

A heavily depleted Yorkshire team, without Jonny Bairstow (calf strain), Will Sutherland (broken toe) and George Hill (Lions duty), was given a lively start by Will Luxton (24, 15), who hoisted Dan Mousley for six but was bowled trying to do the same to Briggs.

Adam Lyth swung Moeen’s third ball to deep mid-wicket, but Malan and Wharton quietened the crowd by clearing the ropes five times in a stand of 74 in 43 balls. Malan posted a 32-ball half-century, and Yorkshire were motoring nicely, but then hit a big pothole as three wickets fell for one run in eight balls. 

Lintott had Wharton caught at long on, and Matt Revis caught behind sweeping at what would have been a wide. When Dom Bess clipped Moeen to mid-wicket, his and Revis’ ducks had occupied an entire over for no runs.

The collapse continued as Briggs ousted Harry Duke lbw and Matt Milnes embarked upon a single in which Malan was not interested and left Hasan Ali with a simple run out in his follow-through. Malan, starved of the strike as the clatter unfurlled, scored just eight runs in the last five overs and walked off two runs short of 10,000 in T20 cricket.

Bears openers Latham and Davies took a measured approach to the small target and put 50 on the board in 35 balls and 100 in 65. Revis’ unproductive day continued when he came on for the eighth over, and Davies swung his first and third balls for six.

The pair set a new record T20 opening stand for the Bears against Yorkshire, surpassing the 55 by Ed Pollock and Ian Bell at Edgbaston in 2018, before Latham heaved Bess to deep mid-wicket. Mousley, back in the Bears’ Blast team for the first time this season, and Davies fell in the same Milnes over to leave two new batters to find 37 from 35 balls.

Those new batters were Moeen Ali and Sam Hain, who arrived at the crease with 11,854 career T20 runs between them. Yorkshire were still in the game when Moeen holed out to Milnes with 18 needed from two overs but Hain (24 not out, 12 balls) smote two fours and a six in the first of those overs to see his side home.     

Bears Captain Alex Davies said, “It was nice to get a win but we were all staying calm down there in the dressing room. A couple of years ago we lost the first two games but still topped the group so we know what’s possible. We have a couple of guys coming back into the team and adding the likes of Hasan Ali and Dan Mousley is brilliant. Dan bats three, bowls in the powerplay and bowls at the death so it’s like three players in one.

“It got a little bit closer than we would have liked at the end but a lot of credit goes to the bowlers. They were 120 off 13 and we were staring down the barrel but we thought that, without being disrespectful to them, they were a bit light on batting without Bairstow and Sutherland so we knew if we got them four or five down they might just fall over. Once that happened we just had to keep Malan off strike and we did that really well, squeezing them at the other end and picking up the odd wicket here and there.

“We would like to have finished it with one or two more overs to spare. I misread the length and knew I was out as soon as I hit it but that’s the beauty of having Sam Hain, Moeen Ali and Ed Barnard coming in and they saw the job through.”