Story [ICC3] Doomed to fail? The rocky road of Yorkshire in 2008

[silvanski]

Day 2 and 3 vs Essex

Day 2

Pyrah (lbw Patterson 13 -- 37 for 1) fails again!
Of his 7 innings played this season he could not get higher than 48.

Lyth proves a point when he scores a brisk 54 before being c&b by Palladino, 93 for 2

We're slurping our tea on 122 for 2

Gale goes well till being bowled by Ronnie Iranie for 80, this is shortly before stumps so we send Goughie on as nightwatchman... only to see him come back after three balls and a duck.
So in goes Eskandarian who sits at 1 with Jacques Rudolph on a solid 71 and we're 225 for 4.

Day 3

Rudolph goes on to score a fine 103 but our tail doesn't hold out too well and we're all out for 378... Essex surely will try to extend their lead, and fast.

The shock of the day comes as Goughie (yep there he is again ) takes care of Ten Doeschate for a D-U-C-K:happy:hpraise

He doesn't stop there as a bit later Chopra is walking back to the pavillion with 9, also clean bowled. 20 for 2

Gillespie assures everyone that his radar is working, he bowls Foster for 25 and it's 42 for 3.

Hoggard takes care of Bopara for 14 as yet another ball crashes into the stumps! 60 for 4

But in over 27 he slips up and concedes a pile of runs:brickwall

Bresnan doesn't wanna remain behind so he bowls Napier for 6
93 for 5 and the Essex innings seems to crumble ...

Irani and Middlebrook however have other ideas.
The old warhorse leads a fierce comeback and at stumps he's on 91 with Middlebrook on 45, Essex 200 for 5

A win is becoming doubtful for us but we silenced the critics with our competitive performance!

 

[freddiw]

good work good story KUTGW

 

[silvanski]

Thanks Yorkshire fans!

Wanna thank y'all for the positive replies. I'm having a blast with this game and this Yorkshire squad is fun to manage. Too bad we are having trouble piling up the runs in the OD's.

 

[gutterman]

good work mate

 

[silvanski]

A hard contested draw

Day 4 vs Essex

Warrior Irani fought his way to 106 before being bowled by Hoggard, 231/6
At 1204 Essex declared on 259/6, a lead of 361.

After Lyth went for a duck and we went into lunch on 52/1, Gale and Pyrah embarked on a run spree and try to chase that huge total.

At tea we were 188/1 with Gale on 93 and Pyrah (at last getting his game going!) on 81.
When Gale went for 120, 251/2 this great partnership of 247 came to an end.

Pyrah got out on 128 and we were 280/3, but time was running out.
Rudolph (27) and Eskandarian (18) got us to 311 for 3 at stumps, a draw but a credible attempt to win the match.

And it surely keeps us in touch with the top of the leaderboard, of course Derbyshire's got a match in hand.
But our pride has been restored!
We showed that Yorkshire's ain't a pushover!

Next up is a Challenge Trophy qualifier vs Nottinghamshire in which we wanna get our limited overs stuff together.

 

[gutterman]

unlucky bout the draw so close in the end

 

[surendar]

Goughy boy!!! May be one extra session would have made a difference in the end. Anyways it was a great game of cricket.

 

[silvanski]

Challenge Cup, a close shave

Our latest game in the Challenge Cup -vs Nottinghamshire- and boy, did we come close of winning this!

If anyone still has doubts about our exotic pinch-hitter, he silenced the critics.
And I caught a couple, so there's at least something I can do right
Our next one will be vs Scotland, bottom of the table... we can win that one... theoretically at least:

 

[gutterman]

close match unlucky on not winning

 

[silvanski]

Relief! OD win

Shame on us if we'd lost this one.
The Scots went ahead at a scary run rate but Craig White cut off their tail.
Quite pleased with my own performance
Still, it leaves us nowhere in the tables.

May 31 2008 it's a CC-D2 vs Leicestershire, they're currently 8th, we're 6th.
It's gonna be a very tactical match as the weather's bound to be erratic with rain forecast
Dizzy's completely out of form, he'll be spending more time in the nets, as will Bresnan

Ottis will be bowling his first CC game of the season cuz he really found his form in the OD's

 

[freddiw]

otis appaent all rounder at 11 ??????/

awesome story KUTGW

 

[surendar]

Its going to be a cracking contest between 8th and 6th placed opponents. Com'on Goughie boy.. Get them with your fantastic yorkers!

 

[silvanski]

Gibson is more reliable with ball than bat this season, hence his inclusion as #11

 

[silvanski]

A fiasco!

Our latest county championship (vs Leicestershire) game was a very frustrating one.

The Leicester batting, especially Hylton Ackerman (169 & 82*)demolished our bowling...

And that Thomas New in the 1st innings (83)... we dropped him three times and on top of that he's given the benefit of the doubt in a controversial run-out situation...nothing seemed to work right for us.

I'm so disgusted with this outcome that I'm gonna keep it brief

Leicestershire 498
Yorkshire 314 (White 76*)
Yorkshire 376 following on (White 92 - Gibson 92)
Leicestershire 193/1

We're now second from bottom in the tables

----------------

A one-day win
We needed this cuz our financial backers in the US are starting to get nervous.. They don't know much about cricket, a "fine draw" after 4 days of play doesn't mean anything to them but they sure do know the difference between winning and losing.

Durham, winners of the Challenge Trophy in 2007 are having a hard time this season.

What's starting to worry us is that we have a relatively small pool of players to choose from It's beginning to show in our fitness levels... Our physios have their hands full...

 

[gutterman]

good win and bad loss i suppose kutgw