Championship cricket can be immensely tedious but when it is good, it is utterly compelling. Whereas the excitement in limited-overs cricket can seem manufactured, the four-day game earns its thrills with its periods of ennui and spectators who sat through five torpid sessions here were rewarded with an astonishing passage of play yesterday evening.

This contest, which has so much at stake at the bottom of the Division One table, has burst into life and provided the weather holds, it should be absorbing today and tomorrow.

Half an hour after tea, Hampshire were cruising towards a significant first-innings lead, on 157-2 in response to Yorkshire's 236. In less than an hour, they had slumped to 198-9, although they rallied with a last-wicket partnership of 38 and were finally bowled out for the same score as their opponents.

The architect of the hosts' collapse was Adil Rashid.

The young leg-spinner had hinted at a return to form in recent weeks, but this was more than just a hint. He surely can never have bowled better, as he picked up career-best figures of 7-107.

He produced extravagant turn and bewildering variation. There were subtle changes of pace and flight. Above all, his control was immaculate. When he took
5-140 at Canterbury last month, he served up too many long-hops and full-tosses amid the unplayable deliveries.

Yesterday, there were no cheap runs for the batsman. Nor were there any cheap wickets for Rashid. None of his victims was caught on the boundary. They were all bowled, lbw or caught close to the bat.

He ended an opening partnership of 82 in the afternoon session, having Michael Brown lbw with a googly delivered from around the wicket to the right-hander.

After Rana Naved had removed Michael Carberry, Rashid then posed all sorts of problems to Michael Lumb, with the ball spitting at the left-hander out of the rough. The former Yorkshire batsmen survived until tea, and when he and Sean Ervine added quick runs after the break, it looked as though Rashid's probings might be fruitless.

However, he got the wicket he deserved when he turned one sharply into Lumb and had him caught at short-leg off bat and pad. His next ball to Chris Benham was the slider, well disguised and perfectly pitched. Benham failed to pick it, shouldered arms and was struck on the back foot, in front of off-stump.

Nic Pothas kept out the hat-trick ball but Ervine suffered a prolonged rush of blood to the head. Twice, he tried to slog Rashid and failed to connect properly. In the next over, he mis-timed an expansive drive at David Wainwright, then charged recklessly down the pitch and was beaten in the flight and stumped.

After he had been dropped early on by Jacques Rudolph at slip off Matthew Hoggard, judicious hitting had taken Ervine to 43. Injudicious hitting took him back to the pavilion.

Rashid was so threatening that batsmen knew they would soon be dismissed if they just hung around, so they took risks. Pothas and Dimitri Mascarenhas swept, and lofted drives over the infield. Rashid and Wainwright were unruffled.

The former induced a top-edge from Pothas, landing a leg-break in the rough outside his leg-stump as he tried to sweep; the latter had Mascarenhas lbw, deceiving him in the flight as he too attempted a sweep.

Rashid's flight and turn accounted for Chris Tremlett, stumped as he prodded forward; Imran Tahir edged a classic leg-break to slip.

Last pair David Balcombe and James Tomlinson bludgeoned a series of boundaries in entertaining fashion to remove a smidgen of gloss from a session that belonged undeniably to Yorkshire. Fittingly, it was Rashid who put an end to the fun, having Tomlinson caught at leg-slip. Having averaged close to 60 with the ball in the Championship only a couple of weeks ago, he now has 35 wickets at 32.17.

He will expect to take more here and record his first ever 10-for in a match.

The scores are level but Yorkshire are in the stronger position, given that their hosts have to bat last on a pitch that is offering more and more help to the spinners.

Tahir's leg-spin, though, will be a huge danger to Yorkshire, who will have to bat vigilantly while also seizing on opportunities to score runs.

In the morning yesterday, Tomlinson took two of the three Yorkshire wickets to fall as the visitors moved from 206-7 to 236 all out, with Jacques Rudolph falling for 89.

The left-armer finished with 5-53.

DISPLAY OF THE DAY

Adil Rashid

The leg-spinner surpassed the career-best figures he recorded on debut in 2006 with yesterday's 7-107, and he was not remotely flattered by his analysis. The pitch assisted him, but he made the most of that assistance with expert control and cunning variation.