One of the major factors behind Yorkshire winning the County Championship in consecutive years has been their batting’s strength in depth, never more so than last season when Joe Root, Adam Lyth, Gary Ballance and Jonny Bairstow were removed from the equation by England for long periods.
Despite both Lyth and Ballance returning for this campaign, the reliance they still place on the lower order is emphasised by their supporters’ old joke that the removal of Yorkshire’s star batsmen means only that the tail has been dispatched.
It was hard to dispute that when, for the second time in this game, a partnership between Adil Rashid and Tim Bresnan gradually took this game away from Lancashire before Liam Plunkett’s half-century ensured the Division One leaders would be facing a formidable target of 349 to win.
Yorkshire began the day on 77 for three but Lyth quickly departed when, after hitting his first ball for a boundary, he lost his leg stump to Neil Wagner, who would finish the match with figures of eight for 146. Steven Patterson, the nightwatchman, fell soon after, caught behind off Tom Smith and, when Andrew Gale was snaffled by Haseeb Hameed at short-leg off Wagner for seven, the score was 89 for six and Lancashire were sensing an unlikely comeback.
Enter Bresnan to join Rashid, who painstakingly together rebuilt the innings under the floodlights, putting on 41 until Bresnan was given out caught in the slips by Liam Livingstone off Luke Procter to a chance the batsman clearly did not think carried.
Lancashire’s fielders flung themselves around gamely as they countered Rashid’s wristiness but Plunkett’s belligerence made the task that much harder, with the England paceman smashing his way to 57 off 84 balls, with seven fours and a six, before he found Alviro Petersen in the deep off Simon Kerrigan, who had earlier claimed Rashid’s wicket.
The damage had been done, though, and by the time Jack Brooks’ middle stump was removed by Procter, 147 had been added for the last four wickets, enabling Yorkshire to reach 236 all out and set Lancashire a target that would be their seventh largest winning total ever.
Still, they are a confident side and even memories of the last time they scored more than 300 in the fourth innings of a Roses match – a 1993 contest that was lost and marked the first-class debut of one Michael Vaughan – would not shake the belief in some quarters that this was a gettable score unless the weather intervenes.
The unflappable Hameed and Smith set about the task before tea, reaching 21 without loss by the interval and coping well with Brooks’ accuracy and Bresnan’s provoked aggression. It was a shock when Smith poked a tame shot to Plunkett at cover off Patterson for 15 but, when the players departed for bad light, 41 runs had been knocked off with no further losses.
