ALEX LEES says Yorkshire did not deserve to win today’s Royal London one-day Cup semi-final thriller against Surrey at Headingley, blaming their batting for a 19-run defeat.

The Vikings failed to chase 256 as they lost their second limited overs semi-final in nine days.

Things had been looking promising after reducing Surrey to 8-2 on the way to 255-7, including three wickets for the excellent Matthew Waite.

Steven Davies scored a fine 104 to compensate for Surrey’s early loss of Kumar Sangakkara, while Ben Foakes made a career best 90.

Yorkshire were then well placed at 54-1 in the 15th over of their chase and looked comfortable. But things fell apart.

The extra pace of Stuart Meaker wreaked havoc, with him taking three wickets in nine balls as the score slipped from 75-2 to 81-5, including the loss of England’s Jonny Bairstow and Gary Ballance.

It had echoes of last weekend’s T20 Blast semi-final defeat to Durham when Mark Wood shot them down.

Tim Bresnan and Waite, with 68 and 38 respectively, recovered things, but Yorkshire ended up 234-9 needing 22 off the last two overs.

They were bowled out for 236 with seven balls to spare, losing at this stage for the second year running.

“If you can't chase down 250, unfortunately you don't deserve to win,” said limited overs skipper Lees.

"We are bitterly disappointed. We have probably played the best white-ball cricket in the country through the group stages. Then, when it comes to the crunch, we haven't been good enough.

"I was happy with their total. The bowlers were exceptional, as they have been all tournament. The fault lies with the batting. Nobody in that top five made a contribution.

"It's not through a lack of trying, but in two semi-finals now we've been let down in our batting. It's unfortunate, but that's how it goes.

"Meaker took three in the middle, and we were struggling. It was a massive point in the game, but we still believed we had the quality to do it. It wasn't to be.”

Jack Brooks and Bresnan struck inside three overs after Lees had elected to field, with the latter getting Sangakkara caught at cover.

But Davies led the fightback. He shared 53 for the third wicket with Rory Burns and a record fourth-wicket stand of 130 with Foakes.

Burns fell caught at long-leg to Waite’s first ball, although the youngster let a return catch slip with Davies on 43.

Still, he came back well and got revenge by getting the left-hander caught at deep square-leg. It was the first of four wickets to fall in the last 11.1 overs as Surrey only added 64.

After the early loss of Adam Lyth, Lees played down the wrong line to Gareth Batty and was bowled before Meaker starred.

He had Bairstow caught at mid-wicket, Ballance caught behind and forced Jack Leaning to chop on.

Bresnan and Waite shared 80 for the sixth wicket as the game developed into a thriller, with Yorkshire needing 83 from ten with four wickets left and 47 from five with three in hand.

Yorkshire’s resident firefighter Bresnan was superb, but ultimately his task was too great and he was last man out – caught at long-off against Jade Dernbach.