Mustard Slaughters The Vikings

For the second time in the last fortnight, Durham Dynamos have defeated the Yorkshire Vikings, and for the second time the chief destroyer in the Twenty20 engagement was Durham's Phil Mustard.

While Yorkshire were a touch unfortunate to lose a close contest against their northern adversaries the last time, they can have little complaint about the comprehensive spanking that was dished out on this occasion.

The visitors' stand-in skipper Azeem Rafiq won his second successive toss and not surprisingly invited the home team to bat first. However what the young all-rounder hadn't reckoned on was an inspired knock from the experienced Mustard who smashed ninety-one runs. Assisted by decent efforts from his top order colleagues and atrocious bowling from the Vikings, Phil Mustard and his Durham partners quickly took the match away from the Tykes. Requiring well over two hundred runs from their allocated overs was always going to seem like the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest blindfolded.

Although, the white rose can point to the absence of Bairstow, Gale, Lyth, and Root (not to mention the injured Patterson), there is no denying that their bowling and fragile batting response were collectively sub-standard. In the hall of shame lurks Plunkett, Rafiq, and Rashid for their wretched bowling efforts, while Jack Brooks has regressed from hero to zero in a few days as he conceded a staggering 45 runs from three overs.

The batting of the hapless Sayers and his team-mates is equally worthy of scorn, and yet again it fell to the consistently outstanding Gary Ballance to salvage some respectability from the wreckage as he typically weighed in with 68 runs.

Yorkshire's one-day adventures this summer have been little short of a calamity. Only our progress in the County Championship has atoned for our limited-overs limitations.

Durham versus YORKSHIRE; at Durham; Friday July 12th 2013; YORKSHIRE wn the toss.

DURHAM: 215 for 6 (20 overs)

Stoneman c Brooks b Pyrah 12 (62-1)

Mustard b Brooks 91 (145-2)

Borthwick c Sidebottom b Pyrah 35 (151-3)

Stokes c Sayers b Sidebottom 23 (171-4)

Muchall not out 27

Breese c Sayers b Rafiq 12 (189-5)

Smith run out 6 (204-6)

Pringle not out 0

Extras: 9

YORKSHIRE: 139 for 8 (20 overs)

Jaques c Borthwick b Rushworth 2 (9-1)

Sayers b Stokes 1 (12-2)

Hodgson c Breese b Rushworth 2 (22-3)

Hodd b Breese 11 (51-4)

Ballance c Stoneman b Breese 68 (101-5)

Rashid st Mustard b Pringle 11 (110-6)

Plunkett c Richardson b Smith 9 (130-8)

Pyrah c Stoneman b Smith 1 (111-7)

Rafiq not out 15

Sidebottom not out 5

Extras: 14

Durham win by 76 runs.