MATCH PREVIEW: Lancashire Lightning vs Yorkshire Vikings
Lancashire head into this evening’s Roses clash on the back of their second No Result in three games. They were rained off at Derbyshire last night, taking a point which has moved them to 14 points from 11 games in second place.
Lancashire Lightning vs Yorkshire Vikings
Vitality Blast, North Group
Friday July 12, 2024, 7pm
Emirates Old Trafford
The likelihood is that the Lightning will need just one more win from their remaining three games to qualify for the quarter-finals given they hold a three-point advantage to fifth-placed Durham.
Revenge is in the air this evening, with Yorkshire having won the return fixture at Headingley last month.
The Vikings sit seventh in the table on 10 points and remain in contention for the quarter-finals themselves, one point adrift of the top four places in the North Group.
They claimed a seven-wicket win at home to Durham last night chasing only 108.
Squad News
Opposition
Despite a resounding victory last night, in which young leg-spinner Jafer Chohan claimed five wickets, Yorkshire will be frustrated at not building on an impressive start to this campaign when they won three of their first four matches.
Since then, they have won two of their last seven.
One of those wins came against Lancashire at Headingley last month.
Yorkshire are one of only five counties never to have won the Blast. The closest they came was in 2012 when they reached the final, only to be beaten by Hampshire. They actually qualified for the now defunct Champions League competition in South Africa that year.
Captained by Pakistan Test skipper Shan Masood, the top order batter is one of two overseas players in their squad. They have wicketkeeper-batter Donovan Ferreira from South Africa at their disposal.
England opener Dawid Malan is their leading run-scorer in this season’s Blast with 327, while seam bowling all-rounder Jordan Thompson is their leading wicket-taker with 17.
Opposition player to watch
With Emirates Old Trafford often being spin-friendly, it is very much worth looking at the bowler who took five wickets for Yorkshire against Durham last night, their leg-spinner Jafer Chohan.
The 22-year-old celebrated his birthday in style with 5-14 from 3.4 overs as Durham were bowled out for just 107 on a spin-friendly Headingley surface.
It was his maiden first-team five-for.
Headingley is usually a batter’s paradise, but Yorkshire have been struggling for fit seamers this year. And with Chohan, plus fellow spinners Dom Bess and Dan Moriarty in their squad, they have gone down a bit of a different route this year.
It’s a route which sets them up well to play at Old Trafford.
Chohan is a talented twirler - a product of the South Asian Cricket Academy.
A Loughborough University student, he was brought to Yorkshire’s attention when he impressed Joe Root in the nets at the ECB’s National Performance Centre, which is based on that Uni campus.
He signed a one-year contract with Yorkshire at the start of 2023 and has since had it extended.
He has also worked closely with Adil Rashid, at Headingley and at the England leg-spinner’s Academy in Bradford.
Chohan is currently playing with a broken right thumb. Last night was his first game back having missed the last two.
Previous meeting
Yorkshire won a home Roses match for the second season running, successfully defending a 174 target to beat North Group pacesetters Lancashire at Headingley by seven runs late last month.
A typically pulsating clash on a pitch suiting pace off saw the pendulum swing back and forth but decisively the Vikings’ way as Lightning slipped from 67-2 in the eighth over to 88-5 in the 11th and later finishing on 166-8.
Home captain Shan Masood underpinned Yorkshire’s 173-8 with 61 off 41 balls, while England’s Joe Root contributed 43 off 33 - they shared 104 for the fourth wicket.
Later, off-spinner Dom Bess struck twice, including the scalp of Keaton Jennings for 46 to start that aforementioned mini collapse.
Off-spinner Chris Green was the pick of Lancashire’s bowlers with 2-21, while pacer Saqib Mahmood struck three times. Unfortunately, they couldn’t prevent Lightning’s third defeat in eight.
Still, they remained encouragingly placed in the North Group and have since proved that by moving to the verge of quarter-final qualification.
What they said
Tom Bruce says Lancashire are desperate to give the bumper home crowd a memorable night this evening.
The New Zealander, fresh from a match-clinching fifty against Worcestershire on Sunday, is set to play in his first Roses match having missed the Headingley defeat following a well-documented dip in form.
But he has fought back admirably and wants to be a part of what could be a special night.
“Albeit we lost the last game, it was a great spectacle watching it,” he said of the Headingley game. “If we look back on the game, we could have - and probably should have - won that game.
“They’re coming to our place, we’ll have the crowd on our side and we’ll look to entertain them as much as we can.
“But just because it’s the Roses clash, it doesn’t mean that we’ll take it any differently.
“It’s a home game, and we want to perform in front of our fans.”
How’s Stat!
Lancashire are on course to qualify for the quarter-finals for a 17th time in 22 seasons since the start of the Vitality Blast back in 2003.
Should they achieve quarter-final cricket this season - it could be confirmed this evening if results work out both at EOT and elsewhere in the group - they will have reached at least that stage in each of the last seven summers.
Clearly, the anomaly is that the Lightning have only won the title once. But the way they are playing this term, you wouldn’t back against them making it two.