Report on third day of Yorkshire v Hampshire, 23rd July 2003 by John Ward

---

Scorecard:

Yorkshire v Hampshire

---

Overnight: Yorkshire 384 and 23/0 (Wood 14*, Fleming 19*); Hampshire 289.
Day 3: no play

For the second successive match, rain on the third day has interfered with Yorkshire in a strong position, and quite possibly cost them the match again.

In several ways, this match against Hampshire at Scarborough has been a repeat of the previous week’s match against Durham at Riverside. In both cases, Yorkshire batted first and, despite a mixed team performance with the bat, put up a good showing. Then they made early inroads into the opposition’s first innings, only to allow the tail to effect a minor recovery and, most crucially, to avoid the follow-on.

Then, with Yorkshire in an advantageous position, rain washed out most of the third day in Durham and all of it at Scarborough. In both cases, it made it a difficult task for Yorkshire to win by natural means in the time remaining.

At Riverside, Yorkshire made a total shambles of their second innings after the rain and went down to a humiliating defeat. One trusts the lessons were learnt and this part of the match, at least, will not be repeated.

But, even in play is possible throughout the final day against Hampshire, time is no longer on Yorkshire’s side, thanks to the malevolent rain. There are still potentially 20 wickets left to be taken in the match: Hampshire can still in theory win without taking any, given a declaration, but Yorkshire will have to take all ten of Hampshire’s to gain a victory. They are just 118 runs ahead, thanks partly to their own carelessness, and after their Riverside experience they will first want to ensure against a repeat second-innings collapse.

They have a hard task ahead of them. But, once again, the wild card is the unpredictable weather that has dealt them two vicious blows in two weeks.

 

(Article: Copyright © 2003 John Ward)