Title secured

THE impressive depth of Yorkshire’s seamdepartment resonated in the Edgbaston gloom as Ben Coad bowled the White Rose into the ascendancy on the opening day against Warwickshire.

Yorkshire arrived at Edgbaston for this Specsavers County Championship Division One match still without injured frontline seamers Jack Brooks, Ryan Sidebottom and Liam Plunkett, but captain Gary Ballance happily took up the option to bowl first and Coad led the dismantling of the home side’s top and middle order.

The 23-year-old, playing only his fifth first-class match, Coad followed up his six for 37 against Hampshire at Headingley last week with four for 47 as Warwickshire made 152-8 on a day stripped of almost exactly half its scheduled overs by rain.

For the home side it was another worrying day. Having taken just a single point from their opening game against Surrey at The Oval, the Bears were in danger of coming in under 100 again at 77-7 before Keith Barker (33 no) and Jeetan Patel (36) counter-attacked.

Yorkshire welcomed David Willey back into their bowling attack but it was Coad who inflicted serious early damage with a burst of three for 12 in his first eight overs. MELTHAM secured the victory they needed to secure the Division One championship thanks to a 2-0 victory over Kirkheaton.

Meltham are now seven points clear of their nearest rivals who have only two matches still to play.

Kirkheaton did manage to get a victory this week though in their evening match with a 5-1 victory over Britannia.

At the bottom it is now looking like Britannia will join both Shelley and Aimbry and be relegated.

In Division Two Linthwaite are doing everything they can to secure the title, this time beating Cumberworth 4-2, but Berry Brow had two wins this week.

Firstly Brow won against Honley 5-2 and then their midweek match against Lepton was also three points for them as they won 2-1.

This puts them only two points behind Linthwaite with three matches remaining to Linthwaite’s one.

Neither are mathematically guaranteed promotion yet though as AFC Lindley in fourth put another six points on the board this week with victories over Holmfirth and Colne Valley.

At the top of Division Three Almondbury Woolpack finished their campaign with a 5-3 win over Hade Edge, but this still might not be enough to keep Moorside off top spot.

They beat Wooldale 4-3 and have two matches still to play and are three points behind Woolpack.

At the other end of the table, Wooldale now need to win their remaining two games while Hade Edge need at least one more win