{"id":689036,"date":"2026-07-13T09:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T09:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/689036\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T09:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T09:54:10","slug":"preview-yorkshire-men-v-somerset-vitality-blast-qf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/689036\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: Yorkshire Men v Somerset, Vitality Blast QF"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

Picture by Allan McKenzie\/SWPix.com. In his first season as Yorkshire\u2019s T20 captain, Jonny Bairstow will lead his side into a Blast quarter-final.<\/p>\n

Yorkshire head into tomorrow night\u2019s Vitality Blast quarter-final\u00a0 with defending champions Somerset at Headingley with significant confidence, says head coach Anthony McGrath, following a rounded group campaign.<\/p>\n

The White Rose claimed seven wins from 12 North Group fixtures to finish second in the group, four of them setting a target and three of them chasing.<\/p>\n

Five of their seven wins have come at Headingley, where the match will begin at 4.30pm to avoid a clash with England\u2019s football World Cup semi-final against Argentina in Atlanta at 8pm. That game will be televised on the big replay screen after the cricket.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to win either way in this comp,\u201d said McGrath. \u201cSo, I don\u2019t mind either way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think, in big games, it depends where you\u2019re playing and so on, what kind of pitch it is. But we\u2019ve shown that we can do both. Chasing with the batting line-up that we\u2019ve got, we\u2019re never dead. And if we do bat first, we can defend any total.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re set up for both.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yorkshire may have only qualified for seven Blast quarter-finals in the 23-year history of this competition, but there is plenty of big game experience in this squad. And that\u2019s not just on the field with the likes of Jonny Bairstow, Moeen Ali, AJ Tye, Hassan Ali and Logan van Beek to name a few. McGrath himself is also a Blast champion.<\/p>\n

\"Anthony<\/p>\n

Picture by Allan McKenzie\/SWPix.com. Anthony McGrath has had his hands on the Vitality Blast trophy before.<\/p>\n

In 2019, he won this competition as coach of Essex.<\/p>\n

Asked if there\u2019s anything different which needs to be done in a big game such as a quarter-final, McGrath said: \u201cI think it\u2019s about not doing anything different.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going into the game exactly how we\u2019ve approached the whole competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it\u2019s a knockout game, there\u2019s more on it, but it\u2019s still the same process with bat and ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know at this stage, eight teams left, anyone can beat anyone. It\u2019s just who handles it on the day, really. If we play like we have done for the majority of this competition, we\u2019ve got a brilliant chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we\u2019re full of confidence for Wednesday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Yorkshire, Somerset also won seven of their 12 group games and finished second in the Central and West Group. The White Rose finished two points better off.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Picture by Allan McKenzie\/SWPix.com. Hassan Ali has been sensational in his first season with Yorkshire.<\/p>\n

Somerset won their last five group matches to qualify for the quarter-finals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They are three-time winners of this competition, including in 2023 and last summer. They beat Hampshire in last September\u2019s final.<\/p>\n

In fact, the Taunton county have reached Finals Day in each of the last five seasons. They have won it twice in that time, were runners-up twice more and were beaten semi-finalists on the other occasion.<\/p>\n

Captained by all-rounder Lewis Gregory, they have Australians Riley Meredith and Daniel Sams as their two overseas players and include the likes of Thomas and James Rew, Craig Overton, Jack Leach and ex-Yorkshire batter Tom Kohler-Cadmore.<\/p>\n

James Rew, who made his England Test debut earlier this summer against New Zealand, is their leading run-scorer with 426, while Sams is their leading wicket-taker with 17.<\/p>\n

Sams is eight behind Hassan Ali, who is the competition\u2019s leading wicket-taker with 25. Pakistani overseas seamer Hassan is four wickets better off than any other bowler.<\/p>\n

McGrath added: \u201cWe\u2019d come up against Hassan before, particularly at Essex, so we knew how good he was. He has that infectious energy everywhere.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Picture by Alex Broadway\/Getty Images. Tom Kohler-Cadmore is returning to Headingley.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see him at training, he\u2019s exactly the same, he doesn\u2019t do anything half-heartedly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo get 25 is superb, isn\u2019t it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really missed a powerplay and death bowler last year. For him to bowl a couple up top and then 18 and 20, to have that kind of record at strike-rate is magnificent. He can\u2019t do it all the time, but the fact he wants to do it and doesn\u2019t get fazed by it, I think it\u2019s half the battle.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got unbelievable skill, change of pace, yorkers, he bowls wide hole, he\u2019s got different options, and he\u2019s that unflappable character as well. He\u2019s been amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

This will be the first ever meeting between Yorkshire and Somerset in T20 cricket, and it\u2019s a game which Sky Sports have chosen to televise.<\/p>\n

Come Wednesday evening there will only be two counties who Yorkshire have never met in the Blast. They are Kent Spitfires and Middlesex.<\/p>\n

Finals Day will take place at Edgbaston on Saturday should Yorkshire qualify. The other quarter-finals are: Hampshire v Essex, Nottinghamshire v Surrey and Northamptonshire v Gloucestershire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Picture by Allan McKenzie\/SWPix.com. In his first season as Yorkshire\u2019s T20 captain, Jonny Bairstow will lead his side…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-689036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}