[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

One-Day Cup, Northern Group

vs Yorkshire

Headingley, Leeds

Worcs innings: Yorkshire won the toss and put the Pears in to bat on a fairly cloudy morning. They were rewarded early doors with some movement off the pitch, and Daryl Mitchell went cheaply for the second game on the trot when he was caught plumb LBW by Ben Coad, but from thereon, both the weather and the innings just got better and better. A fine second-wicket partnership between Travis Head and Joe Clarke came to a desperately unlucky end when Adil Rashid got a fingertip to a Head drive that smashed the non-striker's stumps, running Clarke out, but after useful contributions from Tom Fell and Brett D'Oliveira, it was Ben Cox and Ross Whiteley who steered things home for the Pears, scoring a half-century apiece as they guided the visitors to an imposing 350-6. Need some good, sensible work with the ball now; Yorkshire's main threat is in their top three, and we can't afford to let Kohler-Cadmore run riot in his first match against us.

Yorks innings: That's what we call "a good advertisement for fifty-over cricket". In an insanely tight run-chase, Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Cheteshwar Pujara seemed to be making light work of the job in hand until the thirty-over mark, when two wickets in three balls from Dolly appeared to give the visitors the upper hand. However, every big Yorkshire wicket that fell thereafter, far from being the crucial nail in the coffin, seemed to spur the new batsman into overdrive. 258-6 became 296-7, then 307-8 and 333-9 as Rashid, Bresnan and Steven Patterson all went boundary-hunting off some very lax death-bowling, and with one wicket still standing, the equation was reduced to 16 needed off the final over. Four good balls from Charlie Morris, pushing it to 12 needed off two deliveries, seemed to go up in smoke as Andy Hodd hit the penultimate ball for six. However, Morris held his nerve and permitted the Pears to stagger over the line, just.

Worcestershire WIN by four runs

The Verdict: Rather too close for comfort in a game that saw some laughable bowling from both sides, but a win is a win, and the Pears extend their unbeaten run against Yorkshire in this format to three games since 2015. Worcestershire top the Northern Group once more, with a match against winless Durham on Friday offering the opportunity to extend their lead.