YORKSHIRE Phoenix's makeshift side made a brave attempt to defend their poor score of 161 for eight at Wantage Road, Northampton, yesterday but the task was just beyond them and they went down by three wickets to Northamptonshire Steelers in the Norwich Union League.

It was Northants' first win of the season following a run of five consecutive defeats and it left Yorkshire with relegation worries of their own for they are firmly embedded in the bottom three places.

Yorkshire were so badly hit by a number of misfortunes that they were forced to go in the match with seven uncapped players out of which Steven Kirby and Andy Gray were both making their competition debuts.

Matthew Hoggard was unable to play after a scan had revealed a stress fracture in his foot, Darren Lehmann was nursing a badly bruised right knee on which he will have a scan today, and Chris Silverwood was unavailable following the recent bereavement of his mother.

Yorkshire knew that they would have to bowl out Northants to win the match and they attacked strongly from the start but they could not shift the chief obstacle, Mal Loye, who held firm with an unbeaten 65.

Kirby and Ryan Sidebottom were a bit wild to begin with but Kirby collected a prized maiden wicket at 18 when Australian Michael Hussey cut him hard and low to point where Gary Fellows dived to his right to hold on to a great catch.

Two balls later, David Byas dropped a sharp chance from Russell Warren at second slip and it was a miss Yorkshire could not afford because he and Loye put on 49 together before Warren was bowled by Fellows.

Jeff Cook was caught by Matthew Wood at the second attempt at slip in the next over from Gavin Hamilton, who made it 92 for four as Byas swooped to hold on to another slip chance to get rid of Alec Swann.

Loye remained solid against both pace and spin but Dawson again raised Yorkshire's hopes with two wickets in one over to leave Northants on 120 for six, Tony Penberthy driving to Michael Lumb at mid-wicket and Graeme Swann falling lbw to his second ball.

There was no stopping Loye, however, whose 50 came off 99 balls with five boundaries, and by the time he lost David Ripley only a couple of runs were needed for Northants to clinch their win.

Ripley was caught at square leg off Dawson, who ended with a creditable three for 28 but Gray was not given the opportunity to bowl his off-spin until the scores were level and his first ball was struck high over mid-wicket for four by Loye.

Yorkshire's score after they had won the toss would have been even lower but for a career-best 67 from Fellows, who faced 108 balls and struck four boundaries.

Fellows joined opener Wood at 14 for two after Michael Strong had dismissed Byas and Lumb with the new ball and the pair ran well together to add 83.

With a long tail to come, Yorkshire would have liked more runs from them but Wood, having made 35, hit a full toss from off-spinner Jason Brown to Hussey at mid-wicket and there was a further setback in the following over when Vic Craven was dismissed without having faced a ball. Fellows played the other spinner, Graeme Swann, to deep mid-wicket and went for a second but Craven could not beat Taylor's throw to the bowler.

Brown and Swann bowled so tidily that Yorkshire were given few easy scoring opportunities and Fellows, batting with less freedom in the later stages of his innings, survived a low return catch to Brown on 54 but he managed to overtake his previous best score of 65 against Leicestershire at Headingley last year.

Two runs later, however, Fellows sliced a drive at Strong, who had returned to the attack, and was caught at backward point by Warren and it was left to Richard Blakey to keep the runs ticking over with an unbeaten 33 off 41 balls with three boundaries.

Strong finished with career-best figures of four for 28 but all five of Northants' bowlers kept it much tighter than Yorkshire were able to manage.

Updated: 12:18 Monday, July 09, 2001