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County Championship
Yorkshire versus Northamptonshire
at Headingley
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday
18, 19, 20 and 21 April 2025
By Roy D Wilkinson
Northamptonshire will be making their seventeenth first-class visit to Headingley. They share the distinction with Hampshire of being the only visiting counties to have won at Headingley more times than they have lost. Of the sixteen matches so far Northamptonshire have won six and lost only four with four draws.
But Yorkshire will be going for a hat-trick of wins as they won here in 1997 and 2001.
Northamptonshire’s first visit was in 1913 when they won an exciting match by 20 runs despite Wilfred Rhodes taking 7 for 45 in Northamptonshire’s first innings and Major Booth 7 for 64 in the second. George Thompson, a tower of strength in Northamptonshire’s early first-class years, guided them to a remarkable victory by taking 11 for 142 in the match despite Roy Kilner’s gutsy 91 in Yorkshire’s failed bid to reach 233 to win.
Things were put right in 1922 when Yorkshire won by an innings and 185 runs thanks to the Kilner brothers, Roy (124) and Norman (69), who added 109 for the 6th wicket in Yorkshire’s total of 342, and Abe Waddington who, bowling furious left-arm fast, took 8 for 34 and hustled Northamptonshire out for just 69. A sturdy 50 by Kent-born Claude Woolley (brother of Frank) was the only second innings resistance in an all out 88.
Northamptonshire won three consecutive matches at Headingley in 1965, 1966 and 1980 and, after a rain-ruined draw in 1985, again in 1990 when Alan Lamb (235) and Alan Fordham (206*) added a record 393 for Northamptonshire’s 3rd wicket.
Yorkshire’s four wins came in 1922, in 1933 (by an innings and 151 when Maurice Leyland made 192 and Hedley Verity took 13 for 102 in the match) and in Northamptonshire’s last two matches here in 1997 and 2001.
Four Yorkshire Test players, Michael Vaughan, Matthew Hoggard, Chris Silverwood and Craig White, have all tasted success in this fixture.
Vaughan with 133, Silverwood (5 for 58) and Hoggard (5 for 82) in the 2001 match helped Yorkshire to a four-wicket win.
White, with 67 and 5 for 31, was the prime player in Yorkshire’s win by 36 runs in 1997.
Northamptonshire to extend their winning margin over Yorkshire at Headingley or Yorkshire to achieve a hat-trick of wins?
A tasty prospect!
In the 134 first-class matches between the two counties since they first met in 1908, Yorkshire have won 63, lost 25 and 46 have been left drawn.
Highest totals: By Yorkshire 548 for 4 dec at Harrogate in 1921
By Northamptonshire 531 for 4 wkts at Northampton in 1996
Lowest totals: By Yorkshire 64 at Northampton in 1959
By Northamptonshire 15 at Northampton in 1908
Highest individual scores: For Yorkshire 277* by Percy Holmes at Harrogate in 1921
For Northamptonshire 235 by Alan Lamb at Leeds in 1990
Best bowling in an innings: For Yorkshire 9 for 37 by Mark Robinson at Harrogate in 1993
For Northamptonshire 8 for 9 by George Tribe at Northampton in 1958
Best bowling in a match: For Yorkshire 16 for 35 by Bill Bowes at Kettering in 1935
For Northamptonshire 15 for 31 by George Tribe at Northampton in 1958
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