Picture by John Clifton/SWPix.com. Matthew Revis drives en-route to a List A best 85.
Yorkshire suffered their first defeat in four in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup as former England white-ball seamer Jake Ball claimed four wickets to bowl them out for 247 before opener Archie Vaughan’s all-format career best 95 led a confident chase at Clifton Park, York.
The White Rose remain nicely placed at the top of the Group B table at the halfway stage of the campaign, though they have been joined on 12 points by a Somerset side who have also won three and lost one. Their win here came by six wickets with five balls remaining.
All-rounder Matthew Revis continued his excellent recent form with a List A best run-a-ball 85, but Yorkshire were hurt by the loss of early and late wickets on the same pitch used for Tuesday’s big Roses win over Lancashire.
Experienced quick Ball finished with 4-34 from 9.4 overs, his best List A figures in a little over six years. He struck once with the new ball and then three times towards the end.
Last year’s One-Day Cup finalists then chased with relative comfort against an attack minus Ben Coad and Jack White having been rested. Nineteen-year-old opener Vaughan hit 11 fours off 127 balls but fell five short of a maiden first-team century.
Yorkshire were also missing their in-form opener Imam-Ul-Haq, the ex-Somerset overseas player, because of a minor hip injury.
Picture by John Clifton/SWPix.com. Somerset’s Josh Thomas (centre) celebrates after running out Yorkshire’s Will Luxton.
Imam had scored two hundreds and a fifty in the opening three Group B games and was the leading run-scorer in the competition with 331 to his name.
And the hosts encountered top-order problems having been inserted, slipping to 28-3 inside 10 overs.
Adam Lyth was bowled by a beauty from Jake Ball, which uprooted off-stump having angled in and nipped away, before Will Luxton ran himself out for a golden duck next ball as the score fell to 22-2 at the start of the seventh.
Luxton pushed to Josh Thomas at mid-off and opted to take on the single following a misfield. However, Thomas recovered to throw down the stumps at the non-striker’s end.
James Wharton then fell caught behind to a brilliant one-handed catch going low to his right by wicketkeeper and captain James Rew off Ben Green’s seam.
Revis and opener Fin Bean combined to take 23 off the 14th and 15th overs combined, from seamers James Theedom and Kasey Aldridge, as the pair settled things for Yorkshire.
Picture by John Clifton/SWPix.com. Dan Moriarty hit 30 – his best score across all formats – to help Yorkshire to near 250 in the first innings today.
They shared 44 in all before Bean, on 28, cut Theedom to backward point, leaving the score at 72-4 in the 18th. It was Theedom’s maiden first-team wicket on debut.
Revis went on to reach his second fifty of the campaign, this one off 49 balls, as Yorkshire reached 115-4 after 25 overs.
Revis and Hill were not flustered by the scenario they inherited here and calmly turned the tide.
With 15 overs remaining in the innings, they had taken the score to 170-4; Revis 81 and George Hill 38.
The century stand up also immediately afterwards but so too did Revis’s departure.
He was caught at midwicket pulling against Green, the first of two wickets in as many overs as Harry Duke played on to Tom Lammonby’s left-arm seam, leaving Yorkshire at 183-6 after 37 overs.
Picture by John Clifton/SWPix.com. Yorkshire’s George Hill (far left) celebrates after taking the wicket of Tom Lammonby at the start of the Somerset chase.
Hill, for 41, followed soon after when caught at wide mid-on pulling at Ball before Lammonby had Dom Bess caught on the drive at cover – 204-8 in the 42nd.
Dan Moriarty then heaved the only two sixes of the innings in a career best 30 before holing out to cover as Ball struck twice in the 49th over to wrap up the innings.
Somerset then made a composed start to their pursuit of the four points.
Sheffield-born opener Vaughan, the son of Michael, led the way as he dominated a first-wicket stand of 36 inside eight overs with left-handed Lammonby.
The latter was the first wicket to fall when he skewed a catch high to a very deep gully, where Lyth held on to a good catch in Hill’s opening over.
Just after Vaughan reached a 65-ball fifty – his second in as many matches – his second-wicket partner Lewis Goldsworthy slog-swept Moriarty’s left-arm spin over wide long-on for six as Somerset moved to 83-1 after 19 overs.
Picture by John Clifton/SWPix.com. Somerset’s Archie Vaughan is bowled by Dom Bess for an excellent 95, a wicket celebrated by wicketkeeper Harry Duke.
Vaughan and Goldsworthy (30) shared 75 before the latter top-edged a pull at Revis to long-leg – 111-2 in the 25th.
Vaughan then shared 64 for the third wicket with James Rew. But the only time he really looked to push on from cruise control, he fell – bowled advancing at the off-spin of Bess, leaving Somerset at 175-3 in the 38th.
And even though Somerset still needed 70 at the 40-over mark, a turnaround looked unlikely.
The Rew brothers, James and Thomas, proved that theory correct by sharing 46 inside eight overs, the latter contributing a brisk 31 before holing out to long-on to hand Revis his second wicket (221-4 in the 45th).
James reached his fifty off 54 balls shortly afterwards and finished unbeaten on 53 off 62 balls.
Yorkshire face Middlesex next at Radlett on Sunday.
