Reports from around the grounds in the Championship
Yorkshire 460 & 225-2d Durham 265 & 39-3 - Stumps, Day Three
Pages 10-16
YORKSHIRE continued to pile on the pressure on County Championship leaders Middlesex with a dominant third-day display against Durham at Headingley.
Thanks to a fine century by Adam Lyth in a second innings opening partnership of 188 they set the visitors an unlikely victory target of 421 and then blew away their top order to set up a seemingly regulation stroll to victory today.
Unsurprisingly, all this followed Yorkshire first team coach Jason Gillespie’s demand that his team needed to be more ruthless.
Andrew Gale’s men had shown unaccustomed sloppiness at a time of year when they are usually at their most clinical.
Defending a first-innings score of 460 – built around Alex Lees’ 132 – Yorkshire’s seamers had overpitched in the first ten overs of the visitors’ reply and the home side’s problems had been compounded by third slip, Jake Lehmann, dropping Keaton Jennings on nought and Jack Burnham on seven.
That left Durham on 205-4 at the end of the second day but the White Rose seamers struck back in style on the third morning, dismissing Durham for 265 with Jack Brooks taking three wickets in 19 deliveries as the visitors lost their last six wickets for 38 runs in 13 overs with the new ball.
That gave Yorkshire a firstinnings lead of 195 and put Gale’s men in a dominant position as they opted to bat again.
Gillespie had said on the second day: “I was pleased to get that score on the board but our bowling in the first hour of Durham’s innings could have been a lot better.
“I think the lads acknowledged that and it was important that we responded well to that.
“We need to adapt more quickly because we can’t afford to let teams get off to a flyer like that and all the bowlers knew they needed to be better in that situation. If we’re going to bowl sides out, we need to be ruthless and we weren’t ruthless enough in that first ten overs.
“As the day went on we bowled better but they showed a lot of fight. These are the moments that you need to grasp and unfortunately we shelled a couple but there’s no rollickings or anything like that because the lads know that no one means to drop a catch.”
There was little doubt that news of Yorkshire’s superb display will have spread.
However, Gillespie sought to downplay the idea that he and his coaches kept a particularly close eye on his rivals’ progress, even during the run-in for the championship.
“We’ll keep a passing interest but no more than that because those games are out of our control and we just need to focus on what we have to do,” he said. “If you worry about what your rivals are doing, you’re not focusing.”
There was no danger of that accusation being levelled at Yorkshire’s cricketers once they had taken the new ball against Durham last night as Brooks struck twice.