MATCH PREVIEW: Yorkshire v Lancashire Lightning
North Group leaders Lancashire need two more points to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Blast for the eighth season running. They would also secure a home quarter-final, courtesy of a top-two finish, with one more win from their remaining two games.
Yorkshire v Lancashire Lightning
Vitality Blast, North Group
Thursday July 17, 2025, 6.30pm
Headingley
Currently, sat on 32 points from 12 games with eight wins, the Lightning travel to face Yorkshire at Headingley and then Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge on Friday evening.
The second and third-placed teams, Northamptonshire and Durham, who have 32 points and 30 respectively, face each other in their final group game on Friday at the Banks Homes Riverside. They have both played 13 games.
The Bears are fourth on 28 points from 13 fixtures.
Nottinghamshire, in seventh, are the only other team who could catch Lancashire given they sit on 24 points from 12 games.
Qualification is clearly the bigger picture. But the Lightning would also love to achieve that aim by beating Yorkshire and gaining revenge for last Friday’s defeat at Emirates Old Trafford, by 19 runs chasing 237.
They face a Yorkshire side who have only won four matches, are second-bottom in the table and are unable to qualify for the quarter-finals.
Both Lancashire’s remaining games will be televised by Sky Sports.
Opposition
Yorkshire are an incredibly hard team to read.
One day, they produce the kind of performance they did at Emirates Old Trafford last Friday night to seal a Roses victory on the back of a 236-6 total, with starring roles from Jonny Bairstow (116) and Will Luxton (90).
Two days later, they go and lose at home to bottom side Derbyshire Falcons at Headingley - by eight wickets defending only 152.
In the build-up to this Roses match, their head coach Anthony McGrath has described them as a “moody team”.
Consistency is their enemy, and they head into this clash with their main aim being to avoid finishing bottom of the North Group table having already lost eight of their 12 matches, winning only four.
Yorkshire have never won the Blast and last reached Finals Day - and the quarter-finals - in 2022. They were beaten in the semi-finals by Lancashire on that occasion.
It’s therefore somewhat of a surprise that the White Rose have actually won the last three Roses matches played since that 2022 semi. Two of them have been at Headingley, the other at Emirates Old Trafford last week.
Captain Dawid Malan is their leading run-scorer in this season’s Blast with 340 from 12 matches. Will O’Rourke is their leading wicket-taker with 15, but the New Zealand overseas fast bowler has since departed for international duty and has been replaced by Pakistani batter Abdullah Shafique.
Australian all-rounder Will Sutherland has been with them for the entire competition.
Opposition player to watch
Lancashire know too well how dangerous up and comer Will Luxton can be with the bat having scored 90 not out off 46 balls against them last week.
Luxton crashed seven sixes in catapulting Yorkshire to 236-6 alongside centurion Jonny Bairstow.
Luxton, aged 22, is a former England Under 19s international and has scored 320 runs so far in this season’s Blast, including his first three T20 career fifties.
A player who is a regular in Yorkshire’s limited overs teams, he has opened the batting and batted at three in this competition.
This Roses clash is the first of two games in successive days for Yorkshire to end their campaign. If Luxton plays in both games, which he will almost certainly do, he will bring up 50 first-team appearances since debuting in 2021.
His next challenge is to cement his place in the county’s red-ball team.
Previous meeting
Opener Jonny Bairstow hit 10 sixes in a scintillating career best 116 off 54 balls as struggling Yorkshire shocked the high-flying Lightning by claiming an entertaining 19-run Blast win at Emirates Old Trafford last Friday evening.
Yorkshire won in Manchester for the first time since 2014, claiming only their fourth win in 11 North Group games on the back of 236-6 total.
Bairstow shared 167 with up and coming Will Luxton, who finished 90 not out off 46 balls with seven sixes. Their second-wicket partnership was Yorkshire’s highest ever in Blast history and helped maintain their slim quarter-final hopes.
Bairstow’s innings was Yorkshire’s highest ever in the history of the Blast.
Lancashire suffered a fourth defeat in 11, despite former England white-ball captain Jos Buttler’s season’s best 55 off 33 balls. Lightning finished on 217-7, with Jordan Thompson striking twice.
What they said
Steven Croft has admitted he is surprised that Lancashire are not yet mathematically qualified for the quarter-finals even though they won eight matches.
Teams usually start a 14-game group campaign in the Blast targeting targeting seven wins as their first port of call. That will usually give you a good chance of securing a top-four berth for the quarter-finals.
Eight wins generally guarantees progression.
Not this season, however, given the fact that heading into the final few days of the campaign as many as seven teams could still qualify.
Croft used Lancashire’s next opponents as an example. They have plenty of star quality yet are languishing at the wrong end of the table and are already planning for 2026.
“There’s some real quality in this group,” said interim head-coach Croft.
“You saw Yorkshire the other night, they’ve got some really good players like Jonny (Bairstow) in there and (Dawid) Malan.
“You look up and down the teams and everyone’s got some really good players.
“It has been a bit tighter. We thought if you had eight wins by now, you’d be right up there (and qualified). But it’s a bit jammed up!”
Clearly, Lancashire want to qualify for the quarters, but they are desperate to do so with a home tie in the bag as well.
“That will be massive,” said the former talismanic all-rounder. “To qualify is the first job and then to get a home quarter would be massive.”
How’s Stat!
Lancashire have hit 99 sixes in this season’s Vitality Blast. Never before have they hit 100 in a single campaign.
Luke Wells has hit 21 of those 99, and if he hits seven more sixes between now and the end of the competition he will record a new Red Rose record. In 2022, Australian overseas batter Tim David hit a current record 27 as Lancashire reached the final that summer.