NO ONE looked as if they could upstage the master-blasters here yesterday until Craig White, in desperation, took the ball and won the match for Yorkshire with three wickets for no runs in five balls. In the end, Yorkshire’s 334, their second highest score in the totesport League, the highest against Surrey in the league and the tenth highest in the history of the competition, was too much for their opponents .

But it took an inspired piece of captaincy by White, who had hardly bowled since he suffered the knee injury last July that kept him out for the rest of the season.

Ally Brown was himself rolling back the years and upstaging Ian Harvey when White appeared at the Pavilion End as Yorkshire’s seventh bowler and removed his off stump with a beautiful yorker. Needing 74 off the last 12 overs with five wickets left, Surrey collapsed from 261 for five after 33 overs to 263 for eight in the 36th.

On a typically batsman-friendly pitch and with a short boundary on the gasholder side, White’s spell of 4-0-14-4 proved decisive. Even Harvey struggled after taking a wicket with the first ball of two different spells. Brown mauled him, Anthony McGrath and Deon Kruis — all went for 20 runs in an over — as Surrey raced from 150 for three to 217 for four in four overs.

Brown’s fifty came off 24 balls and he hit 89 off 46 balls with nine fours and five sixes, usually pulled or picked up over mid-wicket. It was his best innings in limited-overs cricket for three seasons — and they said his eyes were going. The fox still trapped on the gasholder roof (Martin Bicknell, who pulled out with a hamstring niggle, swears he saw it) must have thought he was under attack.

It had been like that all day. Graham Thorpe, who was not expected to play one-day games but was specially cleared by the ECB for this one, was the only batsman to miss out, edging to first slip for a duck after scratching around for eight balls.

Matthew Wood held Yorkshire’s innings together with a fine 111 off 127 balls, his first one-day hundred, but Surrey were really put to the sword by Harvey, who was in typically belligerent form, his fifty coming off 35 balls.

Surrey’s seamers did not help themselves with Mohammad Akram, in particular, bowling short and wide. Nearly all the boundaries off the new ball were cut or forced square off the back foot. There are limited ways to contain Harvey when he is in the mood, but bowling long hops is not one of them. Not being able to find a containing length on such a pitch is one thing but the width offered was inexcusable. Yorkshire bowled better and, eventually, it told.

Yorkshire made 111 in the first 15 overs but were slowed a little as Nayan Doshi, the left-arm spinner, took the pace off the ball at the Vauxhall End, frustrating Harvey and then Phil Jacques. If Harbhajan Singh, the India off-spinner, who arrives in mid-May, had been available to Surrey, he would probably have changed the game entirely.

As it was, McGrath made sure Yorkshire kept their foot on the pedal, smashing an unbeaten 48 off 23 balls with six fours and one six, hit almost exclusively and elegantly through or over extra cover. Not for the first time, Mark Ramprakash, Surrey’s stand-in captain, was slow to plug the gap, but so short was the boundary it was almost impossible to defend.