The champions Yorkshire inflicted a first defeat on the previous Division One leaders Middlesex although they were made to sweat for their reward on a pitch laced with mischief.
Ultimately, it took a 71-run alliance between their England Test batsmen Adam Lyth and Gary Ballance – the highest of the contest – to snap the back of a testing chase because for extended periods of this match, Middlesex – the last team to defeat Yorkshire in Championship cricket when they mastered a 471-run chase at Lord’s last April – threatened to repeat the dose and inflict only a fourth loss in Jason Gillespie’s four seasons as coach.
Thereafter there were moments of fret but Middlesex ran out of runs and were consigned to third place in the table, behind their hosts on number of defeats. The result came 10 balls into the extra half-hour when the Australian one-day specialist Glenn Maxwell deposited James Harris over long-on for six. However, Gillespie acknowledged the graft of the second-wicket pair in securing the points.
He said: “We have spoken about our top six doing the job. For me batters seven, eight, nine are plus-tax; they are the VAT. You need your top six to get the job done and while this was a low-scoring affair it was pleasing that Lyth and Gary spent some time out in the middle.”
Ballance, released from the manacles imposed by New Zealand’s Trent Boult in the recent Test series that bore him just 36 runs, almost succumbed to another Kiwi left-armer when he got off the mark with a edge wide of the slips off James Franklin. Yet he later displayed some of the fluency to justify Gillespie’s assessment that he is “not necessarily out of nick, just out of runs”. Lyth, meanwhile, struck 11 velvety boundaries on a surface trickier than the one, four strips down, which recently delivered his first international hundred.
Ollie Rayner, the giant off-spinner, not only split the pair but dismissed them in quick succession shortly after tea on what was the third and ultimately final evening: Ballance walked past one to be stumped by a postcode and Lyth followed when he edged a delivery that turned and bounced.
Then, Toby Roland-Jones, refusing to dwell on the disappointment of having Bairstow dropped by Franklin on nought, produced a pearler three balls later to give Rayner his fourth second-slip catch of the match. And when Rayner took his fifth, off the bowling of James Harris, to halt the cameo of Jack Leaning there were still 43 needed. The equation was down to 24 from the final four overs plus the extra half-hour when Andrew Gale charged Tim Murtagh’s first ball of a new spell and redirected the ball into his stumps.
Earlier, Rayner was instrumental in helping Middlesex match Yorkshire’s first innings score, sharing a 47-run partnership with Franklin in-between some surprise successes with the ball for Yorkshire. With two left-handers at the crease overnight, Gale opened up with Lyth’s occasional off-spin and was vindicated when Dawid Malan chopped to slip. Later, after Steve Patterson’s perseverance paid off with Rayner’s scalp, three wickets for Will Rhodes hurried the innings to its conclusion. It proved a decisive spell.
The Middlesex captain Franklin said: “We know Yorkshire are the benchmark for the Championship and we gave it a shake, which should put us in good stead for the rest of the season. Small moments are sometimes the difference between coming first and second. It was a good cricket wicket, it asked for different skills and I know our guys gave it everything, so there is no point dwelling on the what-ifs and maybes.”
