We continue our Tatts’ Magic Moments series, Jonny Tattersall reflecting on the key moments in Yorkshire’s promotion-winning campaign in the Vitality County Championship.
Here, he looks back on Yorkshire’s first win of the season, at the eighth attempt, with a record-breaking partnership at the heart of it….
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com. Gloucestershire and Yorkshire captain’s Graeme van Buuren and Jonny Tattersall at the toss in Scarborough.
Jonny Tattersall has hailed the triple-century partnership between Fin Bean and Adam Lyth against Gloucestershire at Scarborough in late June, saying: “You could argue that opening stand was the turning point of our whole season.”
Bean and Lyth shared 307 on day one, after Yorkshire had been inserted, to set the county on their way to a first Vitality County Championship win of the season at the first attempt.
An innings and 22-run win was their first of three successes on the spin and, overall, the first of five wins in an unbeaten final seven games of the summer to secure promotion behind Sussex.
Bean led the way with six sixes in 164, while Lyth was more measured for 129 on the ground where he learnt his trade as a young buck.
They united for 80.2 overs and shared the highest first-class opening partnership at North Marine Road, the previous best of 243 between Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe coming for the HDG Leveson-Gower’s XI against the touring New Zealanders way back in 1931.
“Obviously, we’ve got to go on and do the rest for the four days and play well to capitalise,” said Tattersall, who captained in that match with Shan Masood out injured with concussion.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com. SIX! Fin Bean slog sweeps on the way to a brilliant opening century.
“But it really set us off on the right foot.
“You know, ‘We’re going to go big and make it count’.
“That’s what we did every time we had the chance in the second half of the season, be it with bat or ball.
“That was the first moment I put down when I looked back at the results. After being asked to bat, it was unbelievable.
“We were going to bowl as well, and I remember getting a bit of stick off the lads saying, ‘Well, you got that one wrong!’
“But it was more testament to how Lythy and Beany batted and the Scarborough effect as well. Opposition teams often go there and don’t quite know how to bowl on it. They take their time to find the right lengths and lines to get reward.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com. Adam Lyth celebrates his tone-setting century against Gloucestershire.
“We played really well early on and those two cashed in.
“It showed a bit the next day because they came well and we didn’t get as many runs as we should have done. But we got enough.”
Yorkshire ended day one on 348-3, and Gloucestershire fought back well to reduce them to 411-8 and 456 all out. New ball seamer Ajeet Singh Dale claimed three wickets, while George Hill made 45 and Jordan Thompson crashed 44.
From there, the hosts put their foot on the throat to seal victory inside three days.
Wickets were shared around. Each of the six bowlers Tattersall employed – Vishwa Fernando, loanee quick Conor McKerr, Thompson, Hill, Matthew Revis and Dom Bess – struck at least once as Glos were bowled out for 197 and then, following-on, 237.
Thompson, who had an all-round good game with his aforementioned 44 and four wickets, and Revis claimed three wickets each in the first innings and McKerr and Hill three apiece in the second.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com. Jordan Thompson drives expansively to start an impressive personal contribution in victory over Gloucestershire.
Visiting seamer Zaman Akhtar’s second-innings 70 was their only half-century of the match, though it was nothing more than consolatory. He was their penultimate wicket to fall in the match.
Tattersall continued: “All the bowlers in that game bowled well.
“Vishwa coming over was one of the highlights to be mentioned. In the three games he played – Northants away, that and Derbyshire at Chesterfield – I thought he was outstanding for us and added a lot.
“I think all the bowlers from that game onwards just performed exceptionally.
“It didn’t matter who you bowled as captain, and what end you bowled them from, you got really good quality pretty much all of the time and they applied pressure.
“That was what I think we lacked in the first half of the season. But it clicked, and we didn’t give any teams a sniff.”
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com. Vishwa Fernando steams in at Scarborough.
Yorkshire went on to beat Derbyshire by an innings at Chesterfield a week later, and Tattersall said: “Those two games, we were brilliant.
“I don’t know when the last time we had back-to-back innings wins, but I bet they’re few and far between.
“I reckon we’d have been looking back to the Championship-winning sides or maybe 2016 when they went close (2015, Nottinghamshire at Headingley and Durham at Riverside).
“That gave us a lot of confidence and momentum going forwards.
“It probably relaxed us a bit after those two wins.
“But, as daft as it sounds, even though we were winless in seven games, we knew we had Scarborough to come twice and Chesterfield. We know we can win at Scarborough, and we knew we could outperform Derbyshire at Chesterfield having done it last summer.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com. The sun was shining at North Marine Road in late June.
“We knew if we could win those two games, it was all there for us with Middlesex and Sussex still to play.
“Even though we weren’t winning games, we picked up a lot of bonus points. It was probably the most bonus points we’ve picked up, especially with the bat, since I’ve been playing.”
Opener Lyth was Yorkshire’s leading run-scorer in the Championship through 2024, posting 1,215 runs with five centuries. That 129 against Gloucestershire was the fourth of them.
“He got a hundred in the first two games against Leicestershire and Gloucestershire,” added Tattersall. “You’re always going to contribute when you score 1,000 runs, but he got his runs at very important times. He was a huge reason why we went up.
“Another thing he was right at the heart of, and this was more a team thing, but I thought our slip catching this year was pretty exceptional. There weren’t many which went down.
“Beany was the highest outfielder catcher in the league with 22, and Lythy had 21. Hilly as well, at first slip (he claimed 13). That was a big part of the success in the second half of the season, taking the chances when we created them.”
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com. Yorkshire’s players and staff celebrate their three-day victory over Gloucestershire at Scarborough.
