Dom Bess says Yorkshire were below standard with bat and ball in today’s Metro Bank One-Day Cup clash with Leicestershire, the Vikings suffering an eight-wicket defeat which leaves their knockout hopes hanging by a thread.
All-rounder Bess hit a career best 60 in Yorkshire’s 239-7 from 50 overs before rain reduced the Foxes target to 150 in 22 overs, one they chased with significant comfort.
It now means that having lost three of six games, Yorkshire must win their two remaining games – away at Warwickshire and Glamorgan – to have any chance of finishing in Group B’s top three places.
Bess, along with an unbeaten 55 for Matthew Revis, recovered Yorkshire from 118-6 to what felt like a competitive total. But, ultimately, the early collapse proved costly.
“The conditions changed, but I don’t think we set things up for ourselves with the bat,” said Bess. “We’re losing way too many wickets with too many overs to go.
“We saw it the other day, we’ve seen it today – myself and Rev walking out with 15 overs to go.
“We keep saying that it’s a learning thing, and it has to be. If we don’t learn from it, we’re going to go nowhere. We have young batters, but they’ve played a lot of cricket and there’s an element of trying to take control now.
“Conditions did change, but we got cut and pulled a lot.
“Myself and Rev said that we were maybe given one or two cuts, but I think they scored 70 runs with cuts and pulls. Ultimately we weren’t good enough.”
On the Leicestershire chase, Bess said: “We needed early wickets.
“To be fair, if we’d bowled a little bit better, I think 150 in 22 overs (could have been defended). The pitch was doing quite a bit.
“But when you don’t bowl like that, it turns out like it did.
“We also needed a bit of fortune with lbws and stuff, but you can’t give 70 runs through cuts and pulls – you’re not going to win many games.”
