Yorkshire find way over the line against Notts

Yorkshire beat Nottinghamshire in dramatic fashion by two wickets at Welbeck. In a rain-interrupted game, it was Yorkshire that prevailed to finish second in the championship.

The White Roses won the toss and inserted their hosts Notts. With spots of rain in the air and a certain degree of humidity in the air, it was the sensible choice.

When Nottinghamshire survived the early swing from Beth Langston it was comfortable out in the middle for the Opening batters Sonia Odedra and Sarah Bryce. Bryce is one of the form batters in the County Championship and showed her class again with a third fifty in four innings.

The openers put on 155 for the first wicket in a rain-interrupted first innings. The players came off after 16 overs and then again after 30.3 overs. The second rain break signalled an early tea. Scheduling tea there ensured that only six overs were lost from the match.

When the players reappeared after tea Bryce fell to Langston for 60 from 87 balls. It started a semi-collapse as 155 for 0 soon became 168 for 4.

Odedra was caught behind by Abbey Freeborn off the impressive Rachel Slater for 72. With batting points needed in the bid for second place, some of the dismissals were understandable. Other than the openers only Yvonne Graves and Hannah Hughes scored in double figures.

Beth Langston went to the top of the wicket-taking ladder with her 2 for 28. Katie Thompson with 2 for 25 and Slater 2 for 31 were the pick of the bowlers. Nottinghamshire eventually finished on 198 for 7.

With Duckworth/ Lewis/ Stein taken into consideration, Yorkshire would need 206 to win from their allotted 47 overs.

The Yorkshire innings started in a similar fashion as Hollie Armitage and Jess Watson started off in confident fashion. The boundaries were flowing regularly, Notts had to change their plans. Without Kirstie Gordon and Jenny Gunn, they turned to bowlers that had not been given the overs they may have bowled. Rebecca Widdowson and Amy Gauvrit started to stem the runs.

Widdowson’s ten overs only went for 29 runs. They were overs that troubled the batters yet failed to find an edge.

Yorkshire were not too concerned as they had wickets in the bag. Notts usually have the services of three front line spinners. Of that trio, only Lucy Higham was available today. The off-spinner showed just how important she is to Notts with a spell of ten overs and returning figures of 3 for 30.

Higham had the highly dangerous Armitage caught behind to a delivery down the leg side for 59. It helped put the breaks on the Yorkshire reply. Watson and Leah Dobson 57 for the second innings before Higham broke that partnership. Watson hitting a cover drive straight at Widdowson for 46.

Then two balls later had Abbey Freeborn caught and bowled as the Yorkshire batter top edged it back to the bowler.

The run-rate had crept up to over eight an over with balls running out. Wickets started to fall regularly as Yorkshire started to chase the game.

A late innings of 27 runs by Alex MacDonald helped Yorkshire get over the line. She scored 4 fours in 20 balls.

12 runs still needed from the final over and one ball to be bowled the scores were level, MacDonald kept her cool and smashed it through point to give Yorkshire an unlikely victory.