Match scorecard<\/a> <\/p>\nCraig Overton starred at Headingley again to help strengthen Somerset’s County Championship title bid as they hit back strongly against Yorkshire for whom Ben Cliff took 8-76.<\/p>\n
Talismanic all-rounder Overton top-scored with 64 off 111 balls as Division One leaders Somerset recovered from 86-8 to 201 all out in reply to Yorkshire’s first-innings 212 all out.<\/p>\n
After falling as one of eight wickets for Yorkshire’s excellent new-ball quick Cliff, he then struck twice with the new ball himself as the hosts advanced their second innings to 128-6. England hopeful George Hill contributed 50 not out.<\/p>\n
Yorkshire lead by 139 on a ground where Overton crashed a remarkable 79 not out off 30 balls to turn around July’s Vitality Blast quarter-final in which Somerset were 82-8 chasing 162. Overton’s England Test best bowling return of 3-14 was also on this ground against India in 2021.<\/p>\n
Migael Pretorius also recorded a crucial 58, with both him and Overton falling to Cliff, who returned career-best figures.<\/p>\n
The morning session proved to be a tug of war, with Cliff, Overton and Pretorius doing the heavy lifting.<\/p>\n
Cliff struck twice in two balls early on as Somerset fell to 74-7. He had James Rew caught behind and Lewis Gregory lbw.<\/p>\n
Cliff then had Jack Leach caught behind with a beauty which reared at the batter before Overton and Pretorius impressively limited the damage with a ninth-wicket partnership of 90 – a Somerset record for that wicket in matches against the White Rose.<\/p>\n
Pretorius drove nicely and hit 10 fours in all, while Overton hoisted a couple of sixes over long-off and long-on added to half a dozen boundaries. Both sixes came against Cliff, the latter taking him to his fifty.<\/p>\n
Cliff had Pretorius caught at first slip and Overton at long-on and recorded the best first-class figures by a Yorkshire bowler since Craig White’s 8-55 against Gloucestershire at Gloucester in 1998.<\/p>\n
The last Yorkshire bowler to achieve that feat on this ground was Graham Stevenson against Northamptonshire in 1980.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, Somerset’s current bowling coach Steve Kirby, who bemoaned the state of this bowler-friendly pitch after day one, took 8-80 for Yorkshire against Somerset at Taunton in 2003.<\/p>\n
Wickets then continued to fall at the start of Yorkshire’s second innings, with Somerset brilliantly seizing the initiative for the first time in the contest.<\/p>\n
Overton struck twice, including in his first over.<\/p>\n
He bowled Will Luxton through the gate and uprooted his middle stump before getting Adam Lyth caught behind.<\/p>\n
When Jake Ball uprooted James Wharton’s off-stump, Yorkshire were 21-3 in the 14th over.<\/p>\n
After a brief rain delay, bringing an early tea, Revis was caught at second slip off Ball with the score on 40 and the home lead at 51.<\/p>\n
Gregory then had Jonny Bairstow brilliantly caught by a diving Archie Vaughan at cover before Sam Whiteman edged the same bowler to second slip on 35 attempting to leave.<\/p>\n
Yorkshire had lost three wickets for 14, slipping to 54-6.<\/p>\n
Hill and Dom Bess then settled nicely to ensure no further damage through to close with an unbroken 74. Hill even slog-swept Leach for six and played some gorgeous cover drives en-route to a 69-ball fifty. Bess contributed 27 against his former county.<\/p>\n
Run-scoring has proved difficult throughout the two days on a pitch which has seamed and shown signs of extra bounce. It is not expected to get any easier for batting, so Somerset still have plenty of work to do.<\/p>\n
ECB Reporters’ Network supported by Rothesay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rothesay County Championship, Division One, Headingley (day two) Yorkshire 212 & 128-6: Hill 50*; Overton 2-17 Somerset 201:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":894367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-894366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/894367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}