Derbyshire Falcons v Yorkshire Vikings

Vitality Blast, North Group 

Sunday June 18, 2023, 2.30pm 

Queen’s Park, Chesterfield 

Toss: Yorkshire won it and elected to bowl

Teams – Derbyshire: Luis Reece, Haider Ali, Harry Came, Wayne Madsen, Leus du Plooy c, Brooke Guest w, Mattie McKiernan, Zak Chappell, Alex Thomson, George Scrimshaw, Zaman Khan. 

Yorkshire: Adam Lyth, Dawid Malan, Shan Masood c, James Wharton, Matthew Revis, Jonny Tattersall w, Jordan Thompson, David Wiese, Dom Bess, Ben Mike, Jafer Chohan.

Match summary: Yorkshire endured a nightmare day at Chesterfield as, chasing 213, they were bowled out for 68 inside 12 overs, losing by 144 runs. Leus du Plooy and Haider Ali crashed half-centuries to boost the Falcons to 212-4 before a flurry of wickets consigned the Vikings to their fourth defeat in 10 North Group games, ending a run of six straight wins.

Report: Derbyshire’s 212-4 was underpinned by captain Leus du Plooy’s 66 not out off 32 balls and Haider Ali’s 59 off 31, with the Vikings going on to lose their sixth successive T20 fixture at Queen’s Park – a ground where they did at least win in the Championship earlier this week.

Yorkshire missed out on a club record seventh straight T20 victory as they were bowled out for a club record low total in this format at 68. The 144-run defeat was also a club record.

Zak Chappell led the way for the Falcons with 3-16 from two overs of new ball seam.

The only consolation out of this fixture is that the Vikings remain very much in the hunt for a top four quarter-final berth, though this is a massive dent to their net run-rate, which could come into play to decide the qualifiers finishing level on points.

After Shan Masood won his 11th toss in 12 matches as Yorkshire captain, Derbyshire had a mixed first 10 overs of their innings, reaching 70-3. 

But they took 142 off the next 10, including 91 off the last five overs and 31 off the last over with five sixes from Ben Mike, who recorded figures of 1-74 from four overs – Yorkshire’s most expensive ever spell in this format. 

Dom Bess had Luis Reece miscuing high to David Wiese running around from mid-off towards cover early on before Harry Came was caught at mid-off by Masood off Mike with the last ball of the powerplay – 48-2.

The Came wicket was the first of two in four balls as a Jordan Thompson direct hit at the non-striker’s end on the run from mid-wicket removed Wayne Madsen, who looked to get off the mark. That left the score at 49-3 in the seventh.

However, Ali and du Plooy revived the innings with half-centuries, the latter’s particularly destructive as Yorkshire’s bowlers erred in line.  

Ali and du Plooy shared 70 in eight overs for the fourth wicket, ended with Ali in his prime as Jafer Chohan – he didn’t bowl an over – took a fine diving catch off Thompson at deep square-leg, leaving the score at 119-4 in the 15th.

However, du Plooy maintained the momentum in ridiculous fashion.

Ninety one runs came from the last five overs, including 47 from the last two.

After Ali reached his fifty in 38 balls, du Plooy’s came in 29 balls at the start of the 20th over from Ben Mike, which was taken for 31 with five sixes.

Du Plooy and Brooke Guest (39 off 18 balls) shared an unbroken 93 in 5.3 overs for the fifth wicket.

Then, if Yorkshire weren’t on the back foot then, they were within 19 balls of their chase as the score slipped to 7-4 against the seam and spin of Zak Chappell and Alex Thomson.

Both struck twice, with Adam Lyth caught at mid-on against off-spinner Thomson, James Wharton caught and bowled by Chappell, Dawid Malan bowled by Thomson and Jonny Tattersall caught at mid-on off Chappell.

Things got worse, with Masood caught at mid-wicket off Chappell and leg-spinner Mattie McKiernan striking twice in the seventh over to get Wiese caught at long-off and Mike at long-on as the score fell to 37-7.

Thompson followed caught at mid-off against George Scrimshaw before fellow seamer Zaman Khan bowled Dom Bess. Matthew Revis posted an innings high 21, though he was last man out following a near hour-long rain delay from 4.50pm, caught at mid-wicket off Scrimshaw.

Magic moment: In truth, these were few and far between. But the Jordan Thompson direct hit run out of Wayne Madsen was a superb piece of fielding, as was Jafer Chohan’s diving catch on the boundary at deep backward square-leg to help Thompson later get rid of Haider Ali. 

Turning point: The last five overs of the Derbyshire innings, which yielded 91 runs, gave the hosts all the momentum. 

Stat of the match: Ben Mike’s 1-74 from four overs is the sixth most expensive ever spell of bowling in T20 history anywhere in the world and the third most expensive in England. Derbyshire’s Mattie McKiernan tops the list having conceded 0-82 in last season’s quarter-final defeat against Somerset at Taunton.

What they said: Coach Ottis Gibson – “When we’re good, we’re very good. When we’re bad, we can be spectacularly bad like we were today.

“We won the toss, and the first 13 overs went for 90. We were well in the game. Then we lost our radar and our focus. We took the pitch, I think, out of it. We tried to bowl full, slower balls and yorkers and allowed them to get far too many runs.

“Once they got 213, we were always up against it. Having said, the way we’ve batted over the last six games, I didn’t see a batting performance like that coming. That’s not the way to chase 200 runs on any wicket.

“It felt like Shan had an issue with bowling Jafer whilst the left-hander (du Plooy) was in. That’s understandable. But we should have closed out the innings better than we did.

“We didn’t have a discussion about the DLS, although everybody was aware of what it was and that the weather was around. We just didn’t approach the chase very well. 

“We just have to draw a line and move on. We’ve just said in the dressing room, ‘The laws of probability says we were going to lose at some point. The difficulty is the nature of the defeat’.

“The way we were bowled out in 10 or 11 overs is unacceptable to be honest. But the thing about the Blast is that there’s a game in two days. There’s no time to dwell on it.”

What’s next: Yorkshire’s third game in five days – their 11th in the North Group overall – comes against David Willey’s Northamptonshire Steelbacks at Headingley on Tuesday (6.30pm).

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