Sussex 210-9 (96 overs)
Yorkshire enjoyed a productive opening day of their key Rothesay County Championship clash with Sussex at Scarborough, a day lit up by a stunning James Wharton catch in the deep.
Sussex, inserted on a green-tinged pitch, were limited to 210-9 from 96 overs. James Coles top-scored for them with 47 off 54 balls.
New-ball seamer Jack White impressed with three for 21 from 17 overs, with the first of his wickets coming courtesy of what was labelled in some quarters as one of the all-time great catches by Wharton running back towards deep square-leg.
Yorkshire came into this fixture second-bottom after 10 of 14 matches. They were seven points away from third-bottom and eighth-placed Durham, with Sussex only 21 ahead of the White Rose in fifth.
These two counties were promoted from Division Two last summer. Yorkshire beat Sussex here last August.
In fact, Sussex have never won a first-class match at North Marine Road. This is their 11th attempt. If Yorkshire’s start is anything to go by, that run may extend.
Quite where Wharton’s catch stands on the list of all-time great grabs is difficult to say with certainty.
What can be said with certainty, however, is that was a truly outstanding catch. You will struggle to see better at any county venue this season.
Tom Haines looked to whip White over the leg-side but skied a chance off a top-edge. Wharton, positioned at a short midwicket, raced back towards deep square-leg and took the catch mid-air having dived full length.
That left Sussex at 19-1 in the ninth over.
From there, Yorkshire took wickets at regular intervals. Sussex reached lunch at 92-3 in the 29th over.
Australian left-hander Daniel Hughes was the second wicket to fall when bowled by a beauty from White which angled in from around the wicket, straightened and hit the top of off-stump. The score was on 26 at that time.
Coles and Tom Alsop steadied the ship, the former actually counter-attacking, including a six over long-on against the off-spin of Yorkshire’s stand-in captain Dom Bess.
Incidentally, Bess is leading Yorkshire this week with Jonny Bairstow on paternity leave.
Coles fell just before lunch when caught behind against George Hill, leaving Sussex three down on 92.
A feature of the White Rose bowling performance was how miserly they were. For example, Sussex only scored 57 runs in an afternoon session which saw three more wickets fall – 149-6 at the tea break – and then 61 more after tea.
White got wicket number four when he had Danial Ibrahim caught at first slip pushing forwards before visiting captain John Simpson feathered behind a drive at Matt Milnes, leaving Sussex at 113-5 in the 44th over.
Alsop, twice a fifty-maker in last year’s clash, was then the second Sussex batter to fall in the forties after Coles. The left-hander had exactly 40 when he was bowled through the gate by one angled in from Revis with 129 on the board in the 53rd.
More damage was done shortly after tea as Sussex lost three wickets for the addition of one run in eight balls, slipping to 150-9.
The three wickets fell courtesy of catches at first, second and third slip.
Two of them went to Will Sutherland’s seam in the 66th over – Fynn Hudson-Prentice for 23 and Jack Carson for a duck. Henry Crocombe also fell without scoring in the next over to Hill.
Sussex were then boosted late on by an impressively watchful 10th-wicket partnership of 60 unbroken between Danny Lamb and Gurinder Sandhu.
Both men pulled sixes off seam, Lamb finishing on 40 and Australian Sandhu 24.
…
Wharton said: “If you’d have said to us that we’d have them 210-9 overnight, we’d have absolutely bitten your hand off for it.
“Obviously, having them nine down for as long as we did is a bit frustrating but we’ve had a great day there.
“Wickets being shared around is because they all went well as a unit and kept it tight all day. Credit to the lads because they put a real shift in.”
On his catch, he said: “Tom Haines hit the shot, it went up in the air and I started running thinking, ‘I’m not going to get anywhere near it.’
“But it was like the ball just sort of stopped in the air for a while as I was running so I was like, ‘Oh, bloody hell! I might have a chance here.’
“It’s one of those where you just hope it hits your hand and sticks and obviously it did.
“I wouldn’t have stuck a dive in if I didn’t think I could reach it.
“My only concern was I didn’t actually look where the rope was or where people were. I was obviously lucky that I wasn’t anywhere near the rope.”
The County Championship X account described it as possibly the greatest catch in history. Wharton smiled: “I completely agree with that statement, yeah!”
…
Lamb said: “To extend the innings from where we were, I think we’ve done a pretty good job.
“The pitch, it’s a weird one. It feels really hard to score and there’s quite a lot of lateral movement. Is it a good score? I don’t know.
“I’ve played here quite a lot with the second team (Lancashire) but the pitches weren’t like that. The groundsman said that he’d left some more grass on it than last week.
“If we can extend a bit more in the morning and then take some early wickets, that will be the order of the day tomorrow.
“How they’ve gone about it with the ball is really good. They’ve kept it really dry run-rate wise. I think that will be our plan going forwards when we come to bowl.
“Gurinder can bat. He shapes up really nicely.
“To be honest, it wasn’t a pitch for shots. If you tried it too often, you’d just hit one straight up in the air.”
