Rothesay County Championship Division One, Headingley (day three)
Yorkshire 456 & 315-4 dec: Bess 107, Malan 76*; Allison 2-28
Worcestershire 162 & 105: Roderick 27; Hill 4-23, White 2-16, Thompson 2-22
Yorkshire (24 pts) beat Worcestershire (3 pts) by 504 runs
Former England spin-bowling all-rounder Dom Bess posted his maiden century in the County Championship before lunch on day three against Worcestershire before Yorkshire’s bowlers wrapped up a record-breaking 504-run victory in double-quick time.
Bess came in as nightwatchman late on day two and reached 10 overnight. He reached three figures off 115 balls shortly before being bowled for 107 on the stroke of lunch.
Yorkshire batted on for just less than half an hour after lunch, declaring their second innings on 315-4 and setting up an almost impossible target of 610 for a side who batted out 200 overs for a draw against Somerset at Taunton last week.
Bess then took a screamer of a diving catch at cover just before tea. Afterwards, he added another catch at first slip as Worcestershire crumbled to 105 all out, giving Yorkshire the record for the largest victory by a runs margin in Championship history.
Unfortunately for the Pears, there was no sign of the Taunton resistance as Yorkshire claimed a 24-point haul to three. This was just a task too tall as George Hill finished with 4-23 from 7.1 overs of seam.
Jack White and Jordan Thompson struck twice each and Ben Coad and Adam Lyth once.
Worcestershire lost their last eight wickets for 33 either side of tea, falling from 72-2.
Bess, having come in at the fall of the first wicket late on day two, shared in partnerships of 77 for the second wicket with James Wharton and 100 for the third with Dawid Malan, the latter who made 76 not out off 64 balls.
During the morning, Lyth was caught and bowled one-handed by Ben Allison for 35 and Wharton caught at deep midwicket off Matthew Waite for 26.
For large parts, Worcestershire had every outfielder posted on the boundary rope.
That made run-scoring like child’s play for players such as Bess, Malan and, after lunch, Jonny Bairstow, who blasted 44 not out off 26 balls before declaring to leave Worcestershire needing to bat out a minimum of 163 overs for a second successive unlikely draw.
Bess, playing his 102nd first-class match this weekend, had only scored one previous century in first-class cricket – 107 for the MCC in a champion county friendly against Essex at the start of 2018.
Yorkshire’s seamers blew Worcestershire away for 162 in the first innings, taking eight wickets during the second afternoon.
And while they were made to work much harder during the Pears’ second innings, they chipped away at the wickets to leave themselves almost certain winners.
With the score on 28 in the 12th over, Hill trapped Jake Libby lbw before Thompson forced the other opener, Gareth Roderick, to drive to Bess at cover in the 15th.
Bess clung on to a beauty of a catch to leave the Pears 42-2.
Worcestershire suffered a significant blow in the over before tea when Ethan Brookes was bowled leg-stump through the gate by the part-time off-spin of Lyth, and at 72-3 the task of survival was looking a forlorn one for the visitors.
That theory was strengthened with three more wickets in the opening seven overs of the evening as the score fell to 90-6, including the departure of Waite – the hero of Taunton last weekend.
Adam Hose tried to leave new ball seamer White alone and lost his off-stump. Kashif Ali, on 22, also tried to leave alone against the same bowler and was trapped lbw.
Sandwiched in between, Coad had Waite caught behind down leg.
That was the beginning of the end, with Yorkshire winning only their ninth Championship match at Headingley since the end of 2016.
Hill struck again to remove injured Brett D’Oliveira and Allison, and Thompson got Tom Taylor. D’Oliveira and Taylor were caught at first slip and Allison bowled.
Hill then wrapped things up by getting Jacob Duffy caught behind.
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