2:38 AM IST, 10:08 PM local time: In front of a buzzing home crowd, Lancashire dominated proceedings and eventually beat a star-studded Yorkshire line-up by 22 runs. With this, they keep their quarterfinals hopes alive.
Most things went the way of the home team, starting from the coin flip. Keaton Jennings won the toss and decided that his team would bat first to try and put a big score on the board. Alas, the skipper failed to walk the talk and was dismissed early. However, his new opening partner Ben McDermott more than made up for it with an effervescent 23-ball-46. Liam Livingstone was the showstopper in the middle with an exhilarating 39-ball-60. Towards the end, Shadab Khan [38 (20)], Michael Jones [24* (17)] and Jack Blatherwick [15* (6)] provided the finishing touches to help Lancashire score 216/6 in 20 overs.
Interestingly, Yorkshire did not give Moeen Ali a bowl and only used 5 options. Most were expensive. Logan van Beek picked 3/42 off his 4 overs, while Jafer Chohan impressed during his spell of 4-0-33-1.
The wicket looked good for batting throughout and hence, Yorkshire were expected to give a fight. They even got off to a good start with openers Adam Lyth [12-ball-25] and William Luxton [5-ball-11] making their intentions clear in the first over itself. However, then Mitchell Stanley [4/30] came on and put on an exhibition of new ball bowling. On a wicket where most pacers resorted to bowling cutters halfway down, he stuck to a good length and generated delectable amount of swing. Eventually, he picked up the wickets of both the openers as well as captain Jonny Bairstow inside the powerplay.
That allowed Jennings to give James Anderson a third over with the new ball, despite the veteran's expensive returns. He responded by dismissing Joe Root. The first ball of the non-powerplay phase resulted in Moeen Ali's wicket, leaving the visitors reeling at 47/5. Post that, Logan van Beek [24-ball-40], Matthew Revis [38-ball-52], Andrew Tye [14-ball-29*] and Hasan Ali [5-ball-13*] entertained the crowd, but they were always fighting a lost battle.