Yorkshire kept themselves in contention for a knockout place in the Friends Provident Trophy with a tough win in Scotland in a match that turned on a single missed catch by the home side. It gave Craig White, the Yorkshire opener, a second life, which he took gleefully for a match-winning 69.

It was a ridiculous piece of fielding, the ball landing neatly between two Scotland fielders, John Blain and Fraser Watts, but neither moving the few feet it would have taken for them to catch the ball. Technically it did not even go down as a chance, since neither managed to get anywhere near it, but everybody at the Grange knew Scotland's last chance of glory had just disappeared.

For White, it had been a thoroughly professional innings, gutsing it out at the start, happy to accumulate his runs at a steady crawl, passing his fifty in 101 balls but then picking up the pace as he relaxed into his role and started to pick off the weaker elements of the home attack. With the side back on track, he was joined for a late flourish by Gerard Brophy, the wicketkeeper, who helped him to pick up the pace with a 39-ball half-century that took Yorkshire over the finishing line with 16 balls to spare.

As is often the case with the Scots, their batting had been sticky and niggly without ever showing any sign of getting on top of the bowling. The tone was set when they took 30 balls to register their first run. Most of the top order got starts, but as soon as they tried to accelerate the run rate, they got themselves out.

It took a late flurry from Blain, the bowler who was on Yorkshire's books until a couple of years ago and still lives and plays his club cricket in Rotherham, to raise the tempo late on and lift his side to close to 200, with Richard Pyra, the pick of the Yorkshire attack, shrugging off a stinger on the wrist to bowl his way to couple of wickets and also take two catches at mid-wicket.

It did not look enough, but the Scots did give themselves a brief flurry of hope with early wickets and some tight bowling that had Yorkshire struggling at barely two runs an over until White got his stride.

Scoreboard

Scotland

E J M Cowan c Rudolph b Bresnan 36

*R R Watson c Brophy b Kruis 22

N S Poonia b Pyrah 8

†C J O Smith c Pyrah b Rashid 30

G M Hamilton c Pyrah b McGrath 19

D F Watts c Brophy b Pyrah 17

J A R Blain c White b Gough 26

G A Rogers not out 14

G Goudie b Gough 5

Extras (b 3, lb 5, w 8) 16

Total (8 wkts, 50 overs) 193

J D Nel and S D Weeraratna did not bat.

Fall of wickets: 1-26, 2-40, 3-93, 4-105, 5-138, 6-149, 7-187, 8-193.

Bowling: Kruis 6-2-29-1; Bresnan 10-3-27-1; Pyrah 8-1-30-2; Gough 10-0-40-2; Rashid 9-0-31-1; Wainwright 3-0-11-0; McGrath 4-0-17-1.

Yorkshire

A W Gale c Hamilton b Blain 2

C White not out 69

A McGrath lbw b Nel 5

J A Rudolph c Watson b Blain 48

†G L Brophy not out 61

Extras (lb 8, w 4) 12

Total (3 wkts, 47.2 overs) 197

A U Rashid, T T Bresnan, R M Pyrah, D J Wainwright, *D Gough and G J Kruis did not bat.

Fall of wickets: 1-7, 2-18, 3-113.

Bowling: Blain 10-3-17-2; Nel 10-1-35-1; Goudie 10-1-31-0; Weeraratna 6-0-44-0; Rogers 8.2-0-48-0; Watson 3-0-14-0

Umpires: S A Garratt and P J Hartley.