Picture by Jed Leicester/MCC. Ben Cliff celebrates the wicket of Aaryan Sawant at Lord’s today. He spoke to the media this evening.
Today at Lord’s definitely fell into the ‘bittersweet’ category for in-form Yorkshire quick Ben Cliff. A defeat to Middlesex was clearly a frustration. But four wickets on his first ever visit to this venue was clearly something to remember.
“I’ve never even watched a game here before,” said Cliff, whose White Rose side were beaten by 35 runs against their fellow Metro Bank One-Day Cup knockout hopefuls.
“There’s a couple of others like that as well. Luxy is one, Jack White another. We’d never stepped foot in the place, so it was pretty special to be fair.
“I’ve not walked into a venue with a big smile on my face like I did this morning, thinking, ‘This is Lord’s, it’s pretty cool’.”
That stuff out of the way, Cliff bowled impressively for 4-39 from eight overs to help bowl Middlesex out for 246.
Unfortunately, Yorkshire then slipped from 100-2 to 106-6 and later 211 out.
“We’d have probably been the happier side going into half-time, and obviously we were confident of knocking that total off,” Cliff continued. “So it’s obviously disappointing.
“It’s always going to be difficult losing wickets in the middle like we did. But credit to Zafar Gohar (four wickets), he came on and took some big wickets.
“I think they were maybe a little bit below par with the bat.
“It was a bit slow and spun a touch, but there were no demons in the pitch.”
Yorkshire are still well placed for a top-three finish and knockout cricket, albeit they will realistically have to win their last two games to have a chance of finishing top of Group B for a home semi-final.
They face Derbyshire at Scarborough on Friday bidding for a fifth win in seven and then travel to Chelmsford to face Essex next Tuesday.
“We’ve had a great run of form,” said Cliff. “We’ve won some gritty games, we’ve won some glamorous games, and I think we’ve put all the pieces together ready for the back end.
“Hopefully we can put in two good performances. We’ve certainly shown we’re capable of it.”
Before we finish talking to Cliff about his own form, which has seen him take 15 wickets and be the leading wicket-taker in the competition, let’s chat about teenaged team-mate Will Bennison, who was excellent for 63 today.
The England Under 19 scored his maiden first-team fifty and top-scored for the White Rose.
“He played beautifully,” said Cliff. “Very mature innings for a young lad starting his career, and it’s something we all knew he’s got in his locker.”
As aforementioned, Cliff now sits top of the leading wicket-taker’s list in this competition with 16 and has taken a trio of four-wicket hauls over the last couple of weeks.
And the 23-year-old added: “To be honest, I think this role is suiting me at the moment.
“Obviously, I see myself as a new-ball bowler, but I’m coming on first-change and trying to do that job of ruffling a few people up, just being aggressive and hitting a good length.
“And I’ve been getting rewards from it.
“I mean, it does help as well when the likes of Whitey, Coady and Hilly are bowling like they are and batters seem to be going nowhere against them.
“So I come on and they just try and smack me!
“But you’ve got to do your job, and it’s going nicely for me.”
