Yorkshire’s bright start to their Vitality Blast North Group campaign was checked over the weekend, as they suffered two depressing defeats in three days.
On Friday night, Birmingham Bears enjoyed with a comfortable four-wicket victory over the Vikings at Edgbaston after a late batting collapse from the visitors.
And the same fate befell Yorkshire when they were back on home soil against Leicestershire Foxes yesterday afternoon, as they slipped from a position of strength at Headingley to lose by 20 runs.
The Vikings, who had won three of their first four games, were undone by spin in the West Midlands on Friday night, bowled out for 145 in 19.5 overs as the Bears’ three twirlers harvested a combined 7-61 from their 10 overs.
Joe Root (39 from 27 balls) and Dawid Malan (38 from 27 balls) lifted their side to a promising 77-1 but the rest of the batting card folded against an attack led by Jake Lintott (3-15) and Danny Briggs (3- 26).
The Bears then reached 151-6 with 11 balls to spare in the chase thanks to violent contributions from Dan Mousley (41 from 29 balls) and Jake Bethell (32 from 15 balls).
But perhaps most crucially of all, Sam Hain played an extremely wise innings for Birmingham, passing 4,000 career T20 runs on his way to an unbeaten 53 from 40 balls that saw his side home.
And Yorkshire did not find any home comforts at Headingley either when they returned there on Sunday.
Pacer Scott Currie (3-19) and spinner Lewis Goldsworthy (3-20) shared six wickets between them to inspire a brilliant Leicestershire fightback as they successfully defended a 167 target to win by 20 runs.
The Foxes were bowled out for 166 in 19.5 overs, which looked under par on a good pitch.
Opener Rishi Patel was the star man for Leicestershire, top-scoring with 64 off 47 balls.
Yorkshire’s star-studded batting line-up then cruised to 100-2 in the 13th over of their chase, with Malan (32) and Root (30) standing out once again.
But a damaging collapse to 124-6 by the 17th over of the chase left the Vikings with too much to do, and in the end, they only finished on 146-9.
The double dose of defeat sees Yorkshire slide to seventh in the nine-team North Group, but they are only two points off second-placed Birmingham.
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