Warwickshire And Yorkshire Serve Up Nervy Finish

It was another tight game involving Warwickshire in the Royal London One-Day Championship. Last week they were on the wrong end of a one-wicket defeat. They have followed that up this week with a 4 run lose to Yorkshire at the Edgbaston Foundation Ground.

For the Warwickshire faithful they must wonder when a routine victory is on the cards. They tied two games last season and the trend for exciting finishes continues.

It was a devastating spell from Beth Langston that would ultimately see Yorkshire home.

When you look at the players at Yorkshire’s disposal, they would have gone into this game confident of a good result. Katherine Brunt was available for the first time this summer. She was joined in the starting line-up with fellow World Cup winners Lauren Winfield and Beth Langston.

The drama started in the first over of the game as the impressive Issy Wong dismissed Winfield without scoring. Wong bowled well in tandem with Liz Russell and they had Yorkshire on the ropes.

Russell struck with her first ball removing Abby Freeborn lbw for 1. Two balls later Brunt was making the slow walk back to the pavilion. At the end of the first ten overs, Yorkshire were 15 for 4. Russell ended her spell with figures of 2 for 2.

It was up to New Zealand international Leigh Kasperek and Hannah Buck who started to turn things around for Yorkshire as they added 36 for the sixth wicket. Yorkshire were still 67 for six when Kathryn Bryce accounted for Kasperek lbw for 32.

Useful contributions from Leah Dobson with 12 and Langston with 14 enabled Yorkshire to finish on 112 all out from 42.1 overs. Wong dismissed both and finished with figures of 4 for 25.

Brunt and Langston opened the bowling for Yorkshire, and they came out firing. Langston struck in the second over trapping Beth Ellis of a duck. Brunt in the next over bowled her England teammate Amy Jones for 7 as the opening batter looked to take the attack to the bowlers.

Langston impressed with the ball finishing with figures of 5 for 8. While she was out of the attack Marie Kelly and Thea Brookes took Warwickshire to 45 for 4 before Kelly was lbw to the left-arm spin of Katie Thompson.

It was starting to look like Warwickshire’s day when Yorkshire brought back Langston. The Yorkshire swing bowler had lost her England central contract over the winter and she proved that she is still destructive on her day.

Langston bowled Ria Fackrell for 16, just as the batter was taking her side home. Laura Crofts and Wong fell in consecutive balls in Langston’s next over.

It was down to Warwickshire’s last pair of batters. They were 33 runs short of the finish line. Georgia Davis took control. She finished 15 not out. She took most of the strike as Russell got her eye in. Each run was agonising for both sides. Warwickshire slowly edging their way to an improbable win. Yorkshire fearing the game was slipping away.

With just five runs left to win and Yorkshire running out of bowlers, Russell tried to sweep Katie Thompson the bowler most likely to target. She missed and the umpire raised his finger to end another nail-biting game involving Warwickshire.