Cricket: Charge of the Yorkshire brigade

Hampshire . . . . . . . . . . . . . .307-8 dec and 162-9 dec

Yorkshire . . . . . . . . . . . . . .248 and 224-4

Yorkshire win by six wickets

THREE-DAY cricket re-appeared with a bang here. After Thursday's wash-out, the cavalier Yorkshire made exceedingly short work of the 222 they needed for their second Championship victory of the season when David Byas knocked off the winning runs with 7.4 overs in hand. To say Hampshire were hammered is putting it mildly.

Having already seen off the champions, Essex, by 239 runs at Chelmsford, Yorkshire took tea needing 212 in 34 overs. Whatever was in the pot worked wonders because knocking the shine off the ball took on a new meaning, Martyn Moxon and Ashley Metcalfe smashing 30 off two overs from the embarrassed Kevin Shine.

Shine was withdrawn from the firing line, though the carnage continued at such a rate that 57 runs were plundered in four overs. Malcolm Marshall applied some sort of break, but the damage had been done.

While Shine eventually clung on to a catch to remove Metcalfe, Moxon continued with the assault to record his third Championship half-century in as many innings. He and Richie Richardson added 66 in 10 overs of sunshine cricket.

Hampshire then saw a glimmer of hope when Mark Nicholas, fielding with a dodgy digit, called up the spinner, Shaun Udal, who was missing earlier with a thigh strain.

Udal's first ball accounted for Moxon, whose 61 had been taken from 70 balls, and his fourth for Richardson. A victory for the walking wounded, then, as Yorkshire slipped to 138 for 3, but a short-lived one once the next pair had settled in.

The left-hander Byas laid into all about him, two thumping sixes off Jon Ayling included in his repertoire, and together he and Richard Blakey struck 63 from 7 overs to push the score beyond 200. It was now no more than a stroll to the line with 14 required and 10 overs to get them.

The only race left was to see if Byas could reach his fifty, and with a fine sense of the dramatic he managed just that by hitting a sixth four off the 33rd delivery sent his way. It was also the winning hit of a battery of boundaries that saw Hampshire dispatched for 23 fours and five sixes.

(Photograph omitted)