Somerset might have guessed it would be Jonny Bairstow and Adil Rashid who ended their chances of a victory during a forgettable final day, although they did not really help themselves by going into the match with five seamer bowlers and without a recognised spinner in good batting conditions.
Yorkshire, who started the day leading by 124 with five second-innings wickets in hand, had advanced to 419 by the time they were bowled out in the closing stages thanks mainly to half-centuries for their sixth-wicket pair.
The England squad players Bairstow and Rashidhave excellent personal batting records in this fixture, passing 50 on 13 occasions between them. They shared 117 inside 44 overs, a partnership that started during the third evening, and averted any potential danger with some comfort. While Bairstow made 66 to take his tally to 736 runs in eight appearances against Somerset, Rashid became the second man in the match to fall for 99 after the home batsman Tom Cooper on Tuesday.
Rashid, who has 711 runs with three hundreds in 11 appearances against Marcus Trescothick and co, was one of three wickets in the innings for the part-time off-spinner Johann Myburgh when he tried to help him around the corner and was caught at short fine-leg in the first hour of the afternoon. By that time, Yorkshire were 331 for eight with a lead of 284 and only 48 overs remaining in the day. Myburgh struck twice in the day, also getting Tim Bresnan lbw, and the South African’s figures of three for 57 from 28 overs were the home side’s best.
The decision to omit a spinner looked questionable even in the early stages of the match but Somerset want Sohail Tanvir and Chris Gayle to play together in Friday’s T20 Blast match against Essex at Chelmsford, which meant they had to de-register the left-armer Abdur Rehman.
A county can only have two overseas players registered at one time and that has to be for a minimum of 21 days. Somerset wanted Rehman to play against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge last week rather than here because, according to their director of cricket Matt Maynard: “We felt Yorkshire were better players of spin than Notts.”
Still, they have George Dockrell to call on and chose not to. “I think we did [miss a specialist spinner],” said their captain Trescothick, whose side sit sixth in the table with one win, three defeats and this 12-point draw. “You’d always want a spinner if you are looking at bowling them out on the last day, but going into the game we knew there was no specialist spinner. We had to play around it. Johann has bowled enough in the past and can bowl the ball quite nicely. He took three wickets and did a good job. It just took us too long to bowl them out. I thought our bowling was outstanding on the pitch that we played on, and there’s a lot to take from the match.”
A seventh-wicket partnership of 89 inside 23 overs between Rashid and Bresnan either side of lunch also helped Yorkshire along, as did a stand of 64 inside 24 for the 10th wicket either side of tea between Steve Patterson and Jack Brooks, although the game was pretty much safe by then. Their alliance delayed tea until 4.10pm, meaning a two and a half-hour afternoon session.
When the players shook hands 50 minutes later, Somerset had only faced two overs in their second innings and lost Trescothick to the auxiliary new ball bowler Glenn Maxwell, the Australian off-spinner, whose first Yorkshire wicket came courtesy of a slap to mid-wicket.
Yorkshire’s unbeaten start to the season remains in tact after five matches, with a second draw. They are 12 points behind the leaders Durham with a game in hand. Their coach Jason Gillespie, at the end of a hectic week, said: “I think from the position we were in, to come away with a draw is a pass mark. However, we’ve had a good conversation in the dressing room after play and there is plenty of work for us to do. We can play better than that.”
