IT was a black Bank Holiday weekend for York CC as they compounded Saturday's defeat at Barnsley by going under to Oxbridge ECB Yorkshire Premier League title rivals Harrogate by four wickets at Clifton Park yesterday.

Despite an indifferent batting display which yielded only 157 runs, York, as at Barnsley, had a great victory chance when they had the visitors at 59-5, but they could not press home the advantage.

Dan Broadbent and Tom Bartram had seemed to be getting York off to a good start but the introduction of Khalid Butt saw Bartram and Simon Mason go fishing.

The innings then subsided and appeared to get a death blow when Broadbent was run out.

However, Nick Thornicroft and Mike Mortimer put together 45 and York looked able to bat out the innings until Mortimer played a rash shot and Mark Bell received a dubious lbw decision as they posted a mediocre total of 157.

Duncan Snell came to the rescue with three early wickets in the reply and Thornicroft got another.

Nick Kay then took a wicket in his first over and, at 59-5, Harrogate were in worse trouble than York.

However, Butt earned his corn with an excellent half-century and, when Kay snared him, Rich Pearson carried on the good work to defeat York by four wickets with 21 overs to spare.

The championship for York now rests on the slender thread of winning outright their remaining two fixtures against Cleethorpes and Sheffield United and Scarborough holding out when they visit Harrogate next Saturday for the home side's final fixture.

Updated: 11:35 Tuesday, August 30, 2005