YORKSHIRE got the drubbing they deserved at Gloucester yesterday when they lost their championship match against Gloucestershire by 300 runs.

It was one of the heaviest runs defeats in the club's history but avoided being the worst of all time. That was inflicted by the same bogey opponents only four years ago, the margin then being 324 runs

The remarkable fact about this latest thrashing was that Yorkshire had the hero on each of the first two days - Craig White with his hat-trick and eight wickets at the start, and then Paul Hutchison who came in at No 3 as nightwatchman and survived to run out of partners.

But, in between, Yorkshire were completely outclassed for the second consecutive championship match after winning their first two games, and a big all-round improvement is required if they are to sustain a realistic challenge for the title.

There were no excuses from captain David Byas for the sorry display and he admitted that both the batting and bowling had been far too fragile, apart from when White was bowling like a demon in the first innings.

He insisted, however, that Yorkshire were not in the process of falling apart and said that confidence had not been seriously undermined ahead of the Benson and Hedges Cup quarter-final battle with Durham at Headingley on Wednesday.

"I am absolutely certain we can put this result behind us and bounce back," he said. "We did it two years' ago when we lost to Somerset by 197 runs in the championship at Scarborough and then pulled ourselves together to beat Sussex in the quarter-finals of the NatWest Trophy a couple of days later.

"We have had two bad results in the championship but we have still won ten out of 13 of our matches so far this season and it is better to suffer a couple of reverses now rather than later in the summer when it is too late to stage a recovery."

A win was already out of the question for Yorkshire when they resumed yesterday on 136 for five, having been set a victory target of 515 by their uncompromising opponents, and the slender chance of holding out for a face-saving draw rested entirely with the not out batsmen, Matthew Wood and Richard Blakey.

The sixth wicket pair began well, playing with a care not shown the previous evening when Byas had been run out and White had pulled Courtney Walsh casually into the hands of Matthew Church on the square leg boundary moments before bad light brought about a premature close.

Neither player was unnerved by vociferous appealing from off-spinner Martyn Ball, who bowled continuously at the pavilion end, while Courtney Walsh and Mike Smith shared duties at the other, and it was encouraging to see Wood rebuilding his confidence after two first-ball ducks in his last three championship innings.

The bad balls were put away and the good ones blocked as the first hour was safely negotiated, but with the stand worth 60 off 20 overs, Wood struck a ball from Smith cleanly to square leg where it was held near to the ground by Tim Hancock diving to his right.

Wood's departure exposed the tail and the next four wickets fell rapidly for Gloucestershire to grab hold of 23 points quarter-of-an-hour before lunch. Blakey was the first to go, caught at short leg off bat and pad for 34 to justify Ball's latest appeal, and Gavin Hamilton, his movement restricted by a foot injury, was also snapped up close in.

Richard Stemp survived a beamer from Walsh, steered the next two balls to the third man boundary, and then chopped into his stumps, and Matthew Hoggard was last out when he fell lbw to Ball, who finished with four for 72.

It was a great match for the Dewsbury-born Smith who claimed five wickets in all and also picked Gloucesterhire off the floor in the first innings with a career-best 61 which took them from 199 for eight to 329 all out, a position from which they never looked back.

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