Yorkshire keep knockout hopes alive with comfortable win over Worcestershire

Dom Bess recorded career-best T20 figures of 3 for 15 to help restrict Worcestershire to 150 for 5, a total Yorkshire chased down with 32 balls to spare

Worcester: Worcestershire Rapids 150-5, Yorkshire Vikings 151-5 - Yorkshire won by five wickets

Scorecard

Yorkshire kept the destiny of their Vitality Blast qualification hopes in their own hands as they comfortably overcame bottom placed Worcestershire Rapids by five wickets at New Road.

The Vikings moved to within one point of fourth-placed Northamptonshire Steelbacks over whom they have a game in hand and will meet at Wantage Road on Friday evening.

England spinner Dom Bess destroyed the Rapids middle order on his way to career best T20 figures of 3 for 15 from his four overs after the home side were put into bat.

Worcestershire newcomer, Kashif Ali, and keeper Gareth Roderick added an unbroken 73 to enable the Rapids to set a 151 target on a green pitch. But it was nowhere near enough and an unbeaten 46 from ex-Worcestershire player Tom Kohler-Cadmore saw his side home with 5.2 overs to spare.

^{Tom Kohler-Cadmore impressed with the bat [Stu Forster/Getty Images]}

Worcestershire have paid the price for losing too many wickets in the powerplay this summer and they were instantly on the back foot.

Ed Pollock struck the first ball of the match from Matthew Revis over the mid-wicket boundary but then sliced Matthew Waite, who had a recent loan spell at New Road, straight into the hands of third man. The next over accounted for Brett D’Oliveira who drove at Revis and edged through to keeper Jonathan Tattersall.

Rapids stand-in captain, Colin Munro, and Jake Libby added 44 before the latter missed a full toss from Bess and was bowled.

Bess proved difficult to get away and he struck again when Munro, on 29, holed out to deep mid-wicket and then Ed Barnard went lbw after aiming a blow across the line.

He should have had a fourth scalp when Kashif was dropped at mid-wicket by Shadab Khan and it proved a costly miss. Kashif, the first product of the South Asian Cricket Academy to sign a contract with a first-class county, hit Waite for successive sixes in an over costing 24 runs. He and Roderick gave the innings some late momentum.

The Rapids needed to strike early and Mitchell Stanley broke through in his first over with Pollock holding onto a skier at square leg to dismiss Finn Allen.

Pat Brown then had Adam Lyth taken at mid-off but the Rapids were powerless to stem the flow of runs.

Kohler-Cadmore had suffered a severe bout of concussion when struck on the head in the nets when a teammate of Brown in the Pakistan Super League this winter. But the Somerset-bound batter deposited the first delivery he had faced since from his former New Road colleague over the mid-wicket boundary.

Brook made a typically aggressive 35 from 21 balls before he picked out mid off against Stanley and Khan was bowled aiming a big hit off Brown over cover.

Tattersall drilled Dwayne Bravo to deep extra cover before Kohler-Cadmore and Thompson saw the Vikings home.