On the day England’s cricketers became heroes by regaining the Ashes, Yorkshire managed to find two of their own against Durham.
When Adil Rashid joined Glenn Maxwell 20 minutes before lunch, 25 wickets had fallen in less than four sessions. Having gone into the second day with a lead of 16 runs, the County Championship holders had stumbled inelegantly to 79 for five, an advantage of only 85.
Having seen both sides dismissed on the first day, the holiday crowd, many of whom had booked their hotels last December, were almost reconciled to seeing it all happen again on the second, leaving them to find other entertainment.
What happened next almost beggared belief, yet, paradoxically, it justified the judgment of those who had seen nothing in the Scarborough pitch to explain Friday’s cavalcade of edged catches and other dismissals.
Maxwell and Rashid put on 248 in 46 overs, the fourth highest sixth-wicket stand in Yorkshire’s history and the county’s best for that wicket against Durham. In so doing, they seemed to break the resistance of the Durham bowlers and fielders in the manner much beloved of teams that win things.
Both batsmen needed their luck but neither was dropped during a stand which had the majority of the 4,300 spectators enthralled with strokeplay that grew in assurance. For example, Maxwell reached his maiden first-class 50 for Yorkshire off 62 balls with a four over the slips but he needed only 39 balls to get to three figures and scaled that peak with a six off Scott Borthwick.
Rashid got to his century with a cover drive off James Harrison and while his strokeplay was less brutal than Maxwell’s, it, too, grew in certainty. In the afternoon session the pair scored 211 runs and transformed the contest.
A couple of overs after tea Maxwell clubbed Ryan Pringle to deep cover where Graham Clark took a good catch. The Australian departed with 140 to his name, just 15 runs shy of his career best. Perhaps it had given him something to salve the patriotic hurt of Trent Bridge.
Forty minutes later, when the new ball had been taken, Rashid was out in similar fashion for 127. The later wickets of Tim Bresnan and Liam Plunkett merely deepened Durham’s suffering and Yorkshire finished the day on 420 for nine. At some point on Sunday morning, Michael Richardson’s side will face the challenge of scoring over 400 in what had seemed almost certain to be a low-scoring game.
That impression had been strengthened during the morning session when Durham’s seamers took five cheap wickets with that of Andrew Gale giving Graham Onions his 500th first class scalp. The loss of Gale followed that of Gary Ballance, who was fourth out when he played on to Jamie Harrison and Jack Leaning who clipped Harrison tamely to Michael Stoneman at midwicket. The rest of the day, though, belonged not to the bowlers but to Maxwell and Rashid.
