View on the opposition - Yorkshire Vikings
Mon 30 Jul 2018
In the seventh part of a series of views on the opposition from the ECB Reporters Network, we gain some insight on Yorkshire Vikings.
T20 record: Yorkshire have only reached Finals Day twice since the start of T20 cricket in 2003. They were beaten in the 2012 final by Hampshire at Cardiff and beaten semi-finalists by Durham at Edgbaston in 2016.
Last season: The Vikings finished fifth in the North Group with six wins and five defeats. They also played out a Roses tie away at Lancashire and had two No Results. That they didn’t qualify was pretty amazing given they topped 200 four times with the bat. They just lost a couple of key games on the road.
Captain: Steve Patterson.
Overseas players: Yorkshire are set to go into the Blast with just one overseas, the New Zealand captain Kane Williamson, who has returned to Emerald Headingley for a fourth spell. He will play nine group games from July 20 and a potential quarter-final.
The White Rose had signed towering fast bowler Billy Stanlake, but he was pulled out by Cricket Australia in May. They have opted not to replace him.
Big hitter: Tom Kohler-Cadmore blazed a trail in the recent Royal London One-Day Cup, scoring 472 runs with one century - a career best 164 against Durham. The 23-year-old gained England Lions recognition as a result. A powerful striker who hits particularly well down the ground, Kohler-Cadmore played the majority of last season’s Blast for Yorkshire having moved from Worcestershire. He encouraged without dominating. Nicknamed Pepsi, he scored the fastest hundred in English cricket in 2016 when he reached 100 off 43 balls in Worcester’s opening night Blast win over Durham at New Road.
Key Bowler: The obvious choice would come from one of Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid or David Willey, but given they are going to miss the first half of the competition due to England limited overs commitments, let’s delve a bit deeper into the Vikings squad. Seamer Matthew Fisher, 20-years-old, took five wickets on his T20 debut against Derbyshire in 2015 and was described by then coach Jason Gillespie as their best bowler in that campaign. Fisher’s development has been stunted by injury since, and he missed the first six weeks of this season with a torn side. But he encouraged in the Royal London One-Day Cup and earned a Lions call-up. Has good pace with plenty of variation.
Wild card: Jonny Tattersall is in his second spell with Yorkshire having been released in 2015 following one first-team appearance. A batsman by trade, Tattersall was invited back to Headingley to play second-team cricket in 2016 and signed a one-year deal ahead of this summer. However, he did so with the Yorkshire coaching staff urging him to work on his little known wicket-keeping skills, something he had done as a kid before giving up. He played the second half of the recent One-Day Cup campaign and scored a crucial 52 not out in a final North Group win over Northants to secure a knockout berth and a career best 89 in a losing semi-final cause at Hampshire. The 23-year-old is set to keep his spot for this summer’s Blast.
