Statistical preview: Yorkshire

Derbyshire’s third match of the season is against one of their traditional rivals, Yorkshire, at Emerald Headingley. Heritage Officer, David Griffin, looks at the statistical background to the game.

Derbyshire take on Yorkshire for the first time in a first-class match since 2013 when the White Rose County triumphed by an innings at both Headingley and Chesterfield as Derbyshire struggled to come to terms with first division championship cricket.

This will be the 211th scheduled first-class meeting with Derbyshire having won only 20 matches to Yorkshire’s 104.

The two counties first met in 1877 at Bramall Lane, Sheffield, and played their first game at Headingley in 1895 when Derbyshire won by 107 runs. This will only be the 22nd first class game these two sides have played at Headingley – indeed, between 1895 and 1995 they only played at Leeds 14 times, matches usually taken to outgrounds like Bradford, Sheffield, and Scarborough.

Derbyshire have only beaten Yorkshire once by an innings – and two runs – at Derby in 1879, when Derbyshire’s sole innings of 146 all out was enough to win easily, Bill Mycroft taking 12 for 84 off 73.2 4-ball overs.

Four of Derbyshire’s wins came at Headingley, in 1895, 1954, 1988 and 2003, but one of their most famous victories was at Abbeydale Park, Sheffield in 1983, when they prevailed by just 22 runs.

Derbyshire had not beaten Yorkshire anywhere since 1957, a run of 50 championship matches, and Bob Taylor carried a bottle of champagne around in the boot of his car for use when Derbyshire eventually beat Yorkshire.

Kim Barnett scored 95 in Derbyshire’s first innings of 225 before Ole Mortensen scythed through the Yorkshire batting, taking 6-24 as the home side were dismissed for 118. John Morris scored 58 in the second innings and although Geoff Boycott carried his bat in making a masterful 112 when Yorkshire batted again, Mortensen, with another five-wicket haul, and slow left armer Dallas Moir, who also took five, sealed the win for Derbyshire.

There were scenes of jubilation on the ground and in the dressing room afterwards as Taylor uncorked his champagne.

Derbyshire’s batsmen have scored 57 hundreds against Yorkshire, the highest of which was Chesney Hughes’ monumental 270 not out at Headingley in 2013, the second highest individual score in the club’s history and just four runs short of George Davidson’s record 274 against Lancashire in 1896.

Hughes ran out of partners as he moved towards the record, carrying his bat through the innings, and producing one of the finest hundreds in Derbyshire’s history.

Barnett and Bill Storer both scored four hundreds against Yorkshire, while Wayne Madsen is the only current player to have scored a ton against Yorkshire, a truly brilliant 141 at Chesterfield in 2013.

The highest partnership for any wicket in Derbyshire’s history is the 417 added by Barnett and Tim Tweats in the first innings against Yorkshire at Derby in 1997, which saw the home side win by 9 wickets.

Barnett scored 210 not out and Tweats 189, and both were at the crease when the winning run was hit on the final day giving Barnett the rare distinction of being on the field of play for the entire duration of the game.

There have been 110 instances of a bowler taking 5 Yorkshire wickets in an innings, Mycroft performing the feat ten times, and leg-spinner Tommy Mitchell seven times, although John Hulme produced the best innings figures of 9-27 in the second innings at Bramall Lane in 1894. The most recent 5 wicket haul was Wes Durston’s 5-34 at Leeds in 2012.

Mycroft took 10 wickets in a match three times, the best match analysis being his 13-65 in 1879.

The last player to take ten Yorkshire wickets in a match was Philip DeFreitas at Derby in 1997.

Only one Derbyshire player, John Platts, has taken a hat trick against Yorkshire, and that was the very first for the county, at Derby in 1880.

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