ADIL RASHID took four wickets to continue his fine run of form yesterday, but an inexperienced Yorkshire side slipped to a 26-run one-day friendly defeat against Sri Lanka A at Headingley.

The leg-spinning all-rounder returned 4-57 from ten overs as the tourists, including six full internationals, made 276-9 on a true surface in front of crowd of approximately 160 after they had elected to bat.

Rashid has now taken 14 wickets in his last five outings in all forms, including two four-wicket hauls and a three-for in Tuesday’s Royal London one-day Cup defeat to Gloucestershire here.

A Yorkshire side including six with first-team experience and three debutants had a great chance to pull off a notable win, but they fell from 113-1 and 140-2 to 249 all out as nine wickets went to spin.

The hosts’ damaging period came when they lost 5-42 to fall from 140-2 in the 24th over to 182-7 in the 35th, including soft dismissals for Jack Leaning, Rashid and Dan Hodgson in that period.

Hodgson made an inventive 51 off 66 balls, but he was caught at backward point reverse sweeping at the left-arm spin of Chaturanga de Silva, who claimed 3-33 from ten overs.

Leg-spinner Prasanna Seekkuge finished with 4-42 from 9.2, but it was de Silva who picked up the key wickets to change the game.

Yorkshire captain Alex Lees was the innings top-scorer with 54 off 58 balls.

“I’m disappointed but delighted for the players at the same time,” said coach Jason Gillespie. “There was a real chance of winning the game, and the reality is that we should have won it from the position we were in, no doubt.”

“They only fell 20-odd runs short against an international side. For that group of players, we’ve got some experienced players and some not so experienced players, to put up a show like that, was pleasing.

“We’ve seen areas where we could have done things differently, but that’s the whole learning process. They will go away better cricketers now than they were when they turned up before the game.

“I was very impressed with Alex Lees leading the side, but I was with all the lads. They all contributed in some way.”

Sri Lanka’s total was underpinned by a century from their most experienced player, wicketkeeper batsman Dinesh Chandimal.

He played in the Headingley Test match earlier in the summer and scored 45, but he has since fallen out of favour having played in the first Test of the home series against South Africa, which finished last week.

It was only formally confirmed yesterday morning that Chandimal had been dropped from the Test squad for next week’s series against Pakistan.

Like Rashid, debutant left-arm seamer James Wainman enjoyed an encouraging day with 3-51 from eight overs and 33 off 27 balls from number nine in the order as Yorkshire attempted to drag the game out of the fire.

Ben Coad bowled an excellent new ball spell of 0-11 from six overs, but his other two overs went for 27 later in the innings.

Yorkshire are back in one-day Cup action against Northamptonshire at Wantage Road on Tuesday.