Excellent Yorkshire Qualify For CLT20 Group Stage

Excellent Yorkshire Qualify For CLT20 Group Stage

Gary Ballance hit a swift half-century as Yorkshire beat Trinidad & Tobago by six wickets

©REUTERS / Action Images

Yorkshire 154-4 (Ballance 64no) beat
Trinidad & Tobago 148-9 (Ramdin 59) by 6 wickets
Champions League Twenty20, Centurion Park
Scorecard

Yorkshire powered their way into the group stage of the Champions League Twenty20 with a six-wicket win over Trinidad & Tobago at Centurion Park.

After limiting Trinidad & Tobago to 148 for nine, Gary Ballance and Adil Rashid shared an unbroken century partnership to seal victory in 18.5 overs.

Trinidad & Tobago lost wickets in clutches although had a partnership of 93 between Denesh Ramdin (59) and Darren Bravo (45) to thank for a recovery from eight for three.

Ryan Sidebottom returned outstanding figures of three for eight including two wickets in two balls towards the tail-end of Trinidad's innings.

Joe Root struck first to remove William Perkins (0), Sidebottom had Lendl Simmons (7) caught behind and Adrian Barath was bowled by Steven Patterson (0).

Ramdin and Bravo rebuilt the innings, hitting nine fours and three sixes between them before Bravo was caught and both Ramdin and Jason Mohammed (0) were both run out in one Rashid over.

Sidebottom's double strike removed Ravi Rampaul for four and Kevon Cooper for 15 and Yannick Ottley was run out for five from the final ball of the innings.

Yorkshire's reply started in a similar fashion to Trinidad's as openers Andrew Gale (2) and Phil Jaques (6) fell to Samuel Badree and Rampaul.

Root (16) and Adam Lyth (18) then helped get the run chase back on track but when Ottley and Reyad Emrit removed them and with the score on 51 for four in the ninth over, the match was in the balance.

Rashid (33 in 27 balls) played the supporting role to Ballance, who followed up a pair of catches with six sixes and two fours in a fine innings of 64 in 37 deliveries.

Trinidad will now play Uva Next in the final game of the qualifying competition although neither side can topple Yorkshire on top of the table.

© Cricket World 2012