Yorkshire’s grip on their County Championship opener tightened on the second day at Headingley through career-best scores from Jonny Bairstow and Liam Plunkett that vaporised a depleted Hampshire attack in a brutal morning assault.
With the floodlights on and the scoreboard spinning like a fruit machine, only the red ball and white clothing distinguished the pair’s 227-run stand from a Twenty20, with 246 for Bairstow, his third first-class double hundred, and 126 from the No8 Plunkett, an 82-ball century and his first in championship cricket.
By the time the captain, Andrew Gale, pulled up the drawbridge at 2.16pm, Yorkshire had amassed 593 for nine in 118 overs, with the evergreen Ryan Sidebottom then moving to within one victim of 1,000 career wickets as his two for 15 from 12 overs had the visitors limping to 141 for five in reply.
James Vince, unbeaten on 76 from 142 balls and set to resume with Sean Ervine in the morning, offered some resistance late in proceedings but with England’s selectors circling around the Hampshire captain, and the seamer Chris Wood hobbling off with a knee problem, this season is shaping up as a tough one for the visitors.
Plunkett admitted that his earlier onslaught, in which 18 fours and two sixes screamed from his bat – one nearly wiping out Bairstow at the non-striker’s end – was a far cry from his days sent in to test the nets during his first international tour of Pakistan in 2005.
“I always consider I can make runs, even if I was down at No11 during the World Twenty20,” said the 30-year-old, whose previous two first-class hundreds came against Durham University and for England Lions. “I used to go into the nets first with Matthew Hoggard to see how they played and get peppered.”
For Bairstow the pair’s 28 overs of chaos in the middle were reminiscent of his stand of 399 with Ben Stokes in Cape Town. “The way Liam played was fantastic and when someone is striking the ball that cleanly you just let them go,” the England Test wicketkeeper said. “He nearly cleaned me up at the other end – I didn’t see too much of it.
“I’m delighted to score a double hundred at Headingley – it’s my first here – and hopefully it’s put us in a decent position in this game.”
Under gloomy skies first thing, Bairstow and Adil Rashid had negated any possible threat from the second new ball with 99 for the sixth wicket turning their overnight 270 for five into 348 for six when the latter was strangled down the leg side for 34 by James Tomlinson.
Arriving at the crease at 11.52am, Plunkett would find himself within one blow of triple figures at lunch, sitting 94 not out after unleashing boundary after boundary in brutal fashion, with Bairstow himself adding 102 runs to his overnight score of 107 in the space of the session.
Hampshire, deprived of Liam Dawson’s spin due to an abdominal strain, used nine bowlers in all, with the last man deployed, the opener Tom Alsop, getting the standout figures with two for 59, including a maiden first‑class wicket of Bairstow caught in the deep.
Any joy for the part-timer was soon wiped out, with Sidebottom trapping him lbw in the third over of the reply. The left-armer then repeated the trick to Dawson, while Plunkett had both Michael Carberry and the nightwatchman Tomlinson caught in the cordon and Jack Brooks removed Will Smith lbw.
“We have now to try and salvage as much as we can out of the game,” said Dale Benkenstein, the Hampshire coach. “Having Dawson and Wood injured makes life pretty tough. Bairstow was fantastic and we were pretty much off the boil.”
