Essex Eagles v Yorkshire Vikings
Royal London Cup
The Cloud County Ground, Wednesday 17 August
Team News:
Essex Eagles: Feroze Khushi, Josh Rymell, Tom Westley (c), Grant Roelofsen, Robin Das, Nick Browne, Shane Snater, Aron Nijjar, Luc Benkenstein, Jamal Richards, Ray Toole.
Yorkshire Vikings: Will Fraine, Harry Duke (wk), Will Luxton, George Hill, Jonathan Tattersall (c), Matthew Waite, Matthew Revis, Dom Bess, Ben Coad, Jack Shutt, Harry Sullivan.
Match Details:
Umpires: Nick Cook & Mansoor Qureshi
Match Referee: Jason Swift
Toss: Essex won and chose to bat
Result: Essex won by 88 runs (dls method)
Scorecard: View Here
Match Highlights:
Match Reaction: Grant Roelofsen
Match Report:
Grant Roelofsen’s innings of sublime dominance helped Essex to a third successive Royal London Cup win and bolstered their chances of qualifying for the knockout stages.
The South African recorded his third half-century in a row in the competition, finishing with his highest score in an Essex shirt of 90 off 97 balls before a collapse saw Essex bowled out for 240.
Roelofsen put on 151 – the only significant partnership of the game – with Essex captain Tom Westley, whose 52 was his fourth successive score above fifty.
Yorkshire were soon in trouble in pursuit of 241, losing four wickets in the first six overs, and never recovered before heavy rain ended play. Essex, winning by 88 runs on the Duckworth-Lewis method, leapfrogged Yorkshire into third place, though Yorkshire have a game in hand.
Roelofsen completely dominated the third-wicket stand to the extent that he had accounted for two-thirds of the runs when their first hundred was posted, and the same percentage when it was finally ended. Though not afraid to improvise with the reverse-sweep, the most eye-catching of Roelofsen’s impressive array of strokes was a punishing off-drive though the covers for one of his eight fours.
There were two sixes for the South African in an over from Harry Sullivan over midwicket, and a third even more effortlessly off Matt Revis. At other times he was content to keep the scoreboard ticking along with nudges and flicks for ones and twos.
Quickly reading conditions, Westley was content to rotate the strike. His fifth boundary, clouted firmly past Revis, brought up not only his own fifty, but also the 150 for the stand. However, without addition he miscued an attempted pull over midwicket and skied a return catch to Sullivan.
Roelofsen fell not long after when he reverse swept Sullivan and picked out Shutt at backward point.
The pair had come together 25 overs earlier after Feroze Khushi was bowled by Ben Coad, and was followed almost immediately by opening partner Josh Rymell, run out by a direct hit at the non-striker’s end by Shutt fielding at mid-off.
However, the parting of Roelofsen and Westley prefaced a collapse from 184-2 to 240 all out.
Robin Das fell to a carbon-copy of Roelofsen’s dismissal, chipping Dom Bess to Coad. Nick Browne was bowled trying to give himself room, Luc Benkenstein was also bowled before Aron Nijjar fell to a beauty from Shutt. Waite mopped up the innings by having Jamal Richards caught behind and Ray Toole held one-handed at full stretch by Will Fraine at wide mid-on.
The target did not initially look enough, but Yorkshire were quickly in trouble. After his star performance with the bat, Roelofsen was soon back in action, catching Harry Duke behind off a faint tickle and then stumping Will Luxton, who tried to charge Nijjar.
Shane Snater then had Fraine edging to slip, and next ball trapped Jonathan Tattersall like a statue in his crease to claim his third wicket in 11 balls.
George Hill and Waite dug in doggedly for nine overs until Waite’s 35-ball vigil for 15 ended when he was lbw to one that kept low from Toole. The New Zealand seamer followed that by finding the edge of Revis’s bat and Yorkshire had fallen to 71-6.
Five runs later the players scuttled off as the first serious rainfall of an otherwise dry season quickly flooded the ground and forced a premature end to proceedings.
