Warwickshire Bears tear up form book with win over Yorkshire
Bottom-of-the-table Warwickshire turned the Royal London Cup North Group table on its head with a five-wicket win over Yorkshire at Edgbaston.
Yorkshire place in the knockout stages is sealed despite the defeat.
Jonathan Trott (70), Sam Hain (55) and skipper Ian Bell (98) were also among the runs as the Bears chased down Yorkshire’s 281 for eight with 15 balls to spare at Edgbaston.
Joe Root, Matthew Waite and Tim Bresnan all scored half-centuries to help Yorkshire recover from a poor start, but it was not enough to prevent the visitors from losing top spot in the North Group to Worcestershire, who defeated Durham at New Road.
However, the White Rose still secured progress to the next phase despite the defeat, although they are now relying on other results going their way if they are to clinch a home semi-final in tomorrow’s final round of group fixtures.
For the Bears, their defence of the trophy was already over after six successive defeats.
Warwickshire bowler Jeetan Patel said: “We have come off a run of a few really bad losses and some that were quite tight but credit to the guys for the way they came out today.
"We wanted to bowl well, field well and bat well and those three knocks from Ian Bell, Jonathan Trott and Sam Hain were fantastic."
"Keith Barker bowled ten really good overs up front and got us two crucial wickets and then Rikki Clarke got that third one for us so it was nice to have them three down early.
"Then we took wickets along the way and Grant Thornton bowled really well which is where we need to get to.
"We are an ageing teams with a lot of experience but we need to be able to trust the younger guys so it has been nice for the likes of Grant and Aaron Thomason and Sam Hain to come in and contribute so well.”
