Legspinner Jafer Chohan scored his first-ever five-wicket haul at Headingley to help Yorkshire defeat rivals Durham by seven wickets. With only 108 needed to win, Yorkshire’s prospects of making the Vitality Blast quarterfinals were elevated.
Chohan, who turned 22 today, knocked Durham out for 107 in 17 overs after finishing with an incredible 5 for 14 from 3.4 overs. Having chosen to bat, Durham collapsed from 96 for 5 to 97 for 9 on a used pitch thanks to three of his strikes in the fifteenth over. Even though they managed to reach three figures, it was not enough to stop their fifth loss in eleven games, which happened with 3.2 overs left to bat. Adam Lyth led the way with two sixes in 30 overs.
Durham, led by Ben Raine’s 33 points, got off to a cloudy start on their fourth night in the North Group, but they lost comfortably to the Vikings, who won for the fifth time in eleven games. Durham also failed to secure a spot in the quarterfinals. Tomorrow’s victory against Lancashire might vault them into the top four qualifying spots.
Chohan, who attended the South Asian Cricket Academy, had been out for the previous two games due to a fractured thumb. Yorkshire started a match they couldn’t afford to lose in the best possible way by hitting three times in the six-over powerplay.
Following his removal of Durham captain Alex Lees for two in the second over, offspinner Dom Bess assisted fellow spinner Dan Moriarty in removing Ollie Robinson with a catch at mid-on. Graham Clark was taken out by pitcher Ben Cliff, and Jordan Thompson and Chohan made sure that there would be more success.
Durham was at 40 for 5 in the eighth over, and if Dutch players Bas de Leede and Colin Ackermann were still licking their wounds from the day before’s Euro 2024 football loss, things didn’t get any better when they were both bowled out.
A solid 56 runs for the seventh wicket between Australian Ashton Turner and veteran head coach Raine aided their chances. However, stability was short-lived as Durham lost their sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth wickets in the 14th and 15th overs, adding one run in five balls, and finishing at 97 for 9.
Bess, who finished with 2 for 26, caught and bowled Turner. The next ball, Chohan trapped Raine leg before wicket, and Ben Dwarshuis was caught behind to complete a team hat-trick. Michael Jones was removed from the game later in the fifteenth over, and then Nathan Sowter gave Donovan Ferreira another stumping in Chohan’s following over to finish the innings.
Chohan also got the third-best statistics in Yorkshire’s Blast history in his 21st professional outing.
Durham was bowled out for 75 and 101 in their opening two games of this competition, but they bounced back to get into the quarterfinals. But they lost on Sunday at Northampton, bowled out for 140, before further problems arose here. With just three games left, their chances of making it to the quarterfinals might be severely harmed by any further hitting problems.
It was a simple chase for Yorkshire, and it helped that they managed to dramatically raise their net run-rate. Before succumbing, openers Lyth and Dawid Malan amassed a 64-run partnership in nine overs.
Malan bowled Lyth for 29 when he was caught at midwicket off de Leede’s seam by Sowter’s legspin. James Wharton was subsequently caught in the deep by Dwarshuis, but those were only consoling blows.
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