A rapid opening stand of 62 in eight overs between Matthew Wood and Stephen Fleming gave bottom club Yorkshire Phoenix early hope that they could pull off a shock win against First Division table-toppers Gloucestershire Gladiators at Cheltenham yesterday.

But once Fleming miscued a drive at James Averis, Yorkshire went rapidly downhill and their completely inadequate total of 183 was overhauled for the loss of only two wickets with 12.2 overs remaining.

Gloucestershire went for the runs from the start with New Zealander Craig Spearman and Phil Weston piling up 143 in 24 overs, a record opening stand for the county in National League games against Yorkshire.

Matthew Wood must have felt his luck was in when he won the toss on a glorious day and the capacity crowd looked to be in for a high scoring encounter as Wood and Fleming both dished out heavy punishment on Averis.

Wood appeared in particularly good nick and Fleming also seemed full of runs until he lofted an attempted legside hit and Alex Gidman held on to a good catch in the sun at deep mid-off.

Yuvraj Singh's lean patch continued when he drilled back a catch to the economical Mark Alleyne and Wood was caught down the legside by Jack Russell for 38 from 43 balls with six fours when trying to hook a short one from Averis.

Michael Lumb and Craig White tried to repair the damage with a 50 stand in 15 overs, but after making 28 Lumb hit across the line at Dewsbury-born Mike Smith and was lbw.

Suddenly, the height of Yorkshire's ambition was to try to top 200 and bat out the overs but the task was virtually beyond them when White and Richard Blakey were crazily run out in the space of four balls from Smith.

Yorkshire were bowled out with 3.1 overs left as Averis snuffed out the tail to finish with four for 50.

Chris Silverwood put in some testing early overs but Steve Kirby was all over the place and Spearman and Weston hammered him for 42 in four overs.

Nothing Yorkshire attempted could staunch the flow of runs as the openers made it a century stand in the 19th over.

Dawson was collared for 38 in five overs and it was Andy Gray who eventually broke the stand when Weston went for a slog-sweep and was out to a sprawling catch by Yuvraj. He had hit 62 from 72 balls with ten fours.

As the situation grew desperate, White came on for his first bowl in a month and for the first time in several years he reverted to off-spin but three overs cost him 22 while Spearman hit 89no from 88 balls with 15 fours and a six.

The Yorkshire dressing-room door was kept firmly shut as an attempt was made to analyse this feeble performance which made relegation look increasingly certain.

Updated: 11:21 Monday, August 04, 2003