David Warner on Yorkshire Cricket

Matthew Wood scooped the man-of-the-match award at Scarborough yesterday when his best one-day score of 66 sent Yorkshire on their way to victory over Tim Rice's XI in the Festival Bitter Trophy final.

Yorkshire had just three balls to spare in a keenly fought contest when they retained the trophy on a faster run rate in a game interrupted by heavy showers.

Tim Rice's XI scored 242 for six in 44 overs and Yorkshire's original target of 241 in 44 overs was later revised again to 230 in 42 overs following another stoppage for rain.

Huddersfield-born Wood, who has shown great consistency over the festival by making 41 and 44 in his previous two matches, scored his runs off 92 balls with five fours and one six over mid-wicket off Cameron Cuffy which took him to his half-century.

But when Wood was bowled by Jimmy Adams, Yorkshire were 203 for six and still required 27 in just under four overs. They lost Gavin Hamilton six runs later but Richard Blakey and Chris Silverwood calmly saw them home with some firm strokes.

The West Indian new ball pair of Ian Bishop and Scarborough professional Cuffy were both heavily punished, Bishop going for 58 off seven overs and Cuffy 64 from nine while picking up two wickets.

Cuffy gave away many of his runs early on when Anthony McGrath took three consecutive boundaries off him on his way to 34 off 53 balls with five fours before falling to Zimbabwean Flower power - stumped Andy Flower, bowled by his brother, Harrogate professional Grant.

Winning the toss, Tim Rice's XI soon had quick runs on the board as West Indian Philo Wallace lived up to his reputation for smacking the new ball around.

Wallace, who has made around 650 runs this season for Sunderland in the Durham Senior League, had scored all the runs off the bat when he lost Grant Flower to Silverwood with the score on 14. He then drove Paul Hutchison on to the roof of the shed at the Trafalgar Road end but in the same over was caught by Gavin Hamilton at mid-off for 21.

Mal Loye included six fours in his 40 before Richard Stemp had him caught on the mid-wicket boundary by James Middlebrook who later saw Stemp return the compliment for Middlebrook to claim the valuable wicket of Adams for 32.

Andy Flower was out for 45 from 50 balls with five fours but before the next batsman could come in a heavy burst of rain brought an abrupt end to the innings.

The biggest contribution, however, came from skipper Rob Bailey, the Northants batsman, who smacked four fours and three sixes in his 86 and made Yorkshire pay dearly for Hutchison dropping a sitter at mid-off when he was 36.

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