Gale hurries Yorkshire home

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Andrew Gale helped complete victory for Yorkshire this morning and maintain their LV= County Championship title ambitions

Andrew Gale rushed Yorkshire to a four-wicket win over Durham which kept alive their LV= County Championship title hopes.

The captain scored 34 of the 54 runs required on the final day, while Adil Rashid accompanied him to a target of 299, achieved within 50 minutes at the Emirates Durham ICG.

Resuming on 36 with Yorkshire 245 for four, Gale was in no mood to hang around, even going down the pitch twice to strike the pace bowler Mitch Claydon for two of the 12 fours in his unbeaten 70.

Gale made a streaky start, driving wide of off stump in the opening over of the day and edging Claydon just over first slip to the unguarded third-man boundary.

His only other scare came on 54 when he tried to pull a ball from Claydon which kept low but survived the confident lbw appeal.

In Steve Harmison’s opening over he had four balls at Steve Patterson, none of which the nightwatchman needed to play at. But with the target down to 26 Harmison struck twice.

He had Patterson lbw without adding to his overnight three, then Gerard Brophy steered a short, innocuous ball straight to Ben Stokes at point.

Liam Plunkett replaced Claydon and contributed a wide as Gale and Rashid collected the remaining runs in surprisingly frenzied fashion.

Rashid had already failed to connect with a drive when, with 17 needed, he flashed a thick-edged drive just over gully.

Gale then went down the pitch again to Plunkett and miscued to mid-on before turning the same bowler to fine-leg for four.

Chris Rushworth replaced Harmison with five needed and Rashid drove him through mid-on for four and one.

Yorkshire are now six points behind leaders Nottinghamshire, who have a game in hand.

The sides meet at Trent Bridge on September 7 and Yorkshire may also rely on Roses rivals Lancashire to do them a favour as they still have to play Notts twice.