Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Yorkshire’s stand-in captain for the day, shouldered the blame for the Vikings not getting over the line in today’s Vitality Blast tie with Birmingham at Emerald Headingley.
Kohler-Cadmore hit 76 not out off 54 balls in pursuit of a 178 target and batted all the way through the innings, only to see the Vikings slip from a position of great strength at 88-0 in the 10th over of their chase.
In the end, the Bears squeezed with the ball and in the field to leave the hosts needing 29 off three overs, 23 off two and eleven off the last over.
Later, with two needed off the last ball for victory against ex-West Indies quick Fidel Edwards, Kohler-Cadmore could only get one to mid-off, signalling the county’s third tie this season in both limited overs formats.
In April, they even tied with the Bears in the one-day Cup at Edgbaston.
Kohler-Cadmore was captaining the side after Steve Patterson left himself out in favour of an extra spinner – Jack Shutt.
After both sides finished on 177-4, leaving Yorkshire with one win from seven games in the North Group, the England Lions opener said: “That’s definitely a point lost.
“Throughout the whole chase we were in front.
“They bowled a couple of good overs towards the end, but even then I should have seen it home for the team.
“It was my fault in the chase. I should have knocked it off.
“We’ve got a point, but it’s not good enough given the position we’re in.
“I was the one who batted through, and it should be on me to win the game for the team. I didn’t.
“If it was someone else in the same position, it’s on them. When you bat through the innings, you should control it and win the game.
“I felt like we played a really good game today, we deserved to win. But we’ve lost a point.”
Kohler-Cadmore went on: “The pitch was a little bit tacky, and it was hard to hit the boundary.
“But it’s one run, and you can find that run in every part of the game we played – one bad ball we bowled and one single where we might have run two.
“I thought it was a gettable total, and we showed that it was.
“I reckon they were near enough par on that pitch, maybe a tad over. We held them really well in the middle of their innings, and they got away at the end, which cost us.
“But they are allowed to play well, and they did with the bat.
“I felt we played nicely apart from getting over the line.”
Yorkshire now travel to group leaders Lancashire on Friday night, the first game of the second half of the group.
In pursuit of a top four finish for the quarter-finals, they desperately need to get on a winning roll, starting at Emirates Old Trafford in front of a 23,500 sell out crowd.
Kohler-Cadmore added: “Now we’re at a stage in the competition where we need to start winning.
“If we’re going in the right direction, we’ll win more games than we lose. Hopefully we can finish on a high and sneak into the quarter-finals. If we do, all the momentum will be with us.”
