McGrath leads Yorkshire to roses win in Good Hope Challenge CricInfo - 31 March 2001
Yorkshire achieved a comfortable victory over Lancashire in the second match of the Good Hope Challenge under cloudy Cape Town skies. The White Rose county was in control for most of the match. They did allow the Lancashire lower-order batting to threaten the target, but it was too little too late.
Yorkshire adopted the classic one-day method of starting conservatively and saving wickets for the closing overs. At the half-way mark, they had scored just 46 off 22 overs, but still had nine wickets in hand. Gavin Hamilton played a guarded innings before running himself out attempting a second run after the first had raised his half-century. Thereafter Anthony McGrath opened up dramatically. His first 50 took up 75 balls, but he raced to his century off just 28 more before being caught for 104 off 105 balls, his innings including 9 fours and 2 sixes. Victor Craven kept the momentum going with an undefeated 40 runs off just 36 balls. Peter Martin enjoyed a good opening spell of 6-1-7-1, and conceded just 4 runs in the final over, while Chris Schofield also applied the brakes nicely in conceding just 30 runs in his nine overs.
Lancashire made a poor start, losing two wickets in the first five overs. The left-handed pair of Driver and Fairbrother staged a partial recovery before Richard Dawson claimed two wickets in his first three overs with some accurate off-spin. With Hamilton also getting into the act, the score declined to 71 for 6 before the aggressive Joe Scuderi was instrumental in adding 62 for the seventh wicket with Schofield. The latter was dismissed after hitting a six and a dozen singles, opening up the tail. Any hopes of a dramatic recovery were dashed when Scuderi was stumped off the expensive James Middlebrook and, with the asking rate climbing towards 10 an over, the Red Roses wilted and were systematically plucked. Hamilton finished with 3 for 22 and Dawson with an almost as impressive 2 for 23.