Several of them were so determined to occupy the crease that they almost forgot about scoring runs. Their approach resulted in a painfully turgid day's play, with the run-rate staying obdurately below two-and-a-half per over until late in the evening.

The approach was not even particularly successful, because they kept losing wickets until a fine, unbroken stand of 61 between Jacques Rudolph and David Wainwright partially retrieved a precarious situation and took them to 206-7 at the close.

Batting was certainly difficult on a slow pitch, in conditions that encouraged swing bowling, but Yorkshire had won the toss. Although 206-7 is a better score here than it would be on most other grounds – it's value will not be appreciated until Hampshire's innings – any team opting to bat should not require a rearguard action to register its first bonus point.

Yorkshire had subsided to145-7, and it was a particularly slow subsidence. When Adam Lyth became the fourth man to depart, the visitors were 82-4 in the 42nd over.

Anthony McGrath, hardly renowned as a tortoise, scored just three runs in 38 balls before he was lbw to Dimitri Mascarenhas; opener Chris Taylor hung around for 81 deliveries for his 27. Jacques Rudolph was by some distance Yorkshire's most productive batsman, as he so often is, but at one stage he had made 44 runs from 142 balls.

Just as there is a fine line between aggression and irresponsibility, there is a point at which caution ceases to be a virtue. Yorkshire's passivity had ceded the initiative to the bowlers.

They passed up so many opportunities to score by assiduously ignoring deliveries wide outside off-stump, then got out anyway – with the exception of Rudolph, and even he might have been out on several occasions.

If they had been a bit bolder, and looked to hit some of those balls to the boundary, they probably would have scored more runs, not least because they would have disturbed the rhythm of the bowlers.

Rudolph, perhaps realising that he might run out of partners and be stranded in the forties, finally opened up when No 9 Wainwright came to the crease, and his change of tack paid dividends: he scored 39 more runs at a run-a-ball.

Whereas his outside edge had been beaten five or six times during his passive phase, he barely played a false stroke once he began to attack. He glanced where previously he had shouldered arms; he drove firmly where he had pushed forward stoutly; and he used his feet to the leg-spin of Imran Tahir, easing him beautifully through extra cover for four.

Rudolph passed fifty for the eighth time in the Championship this season and will resume this morning 17 short of his fifth century of the campaign. He is the top run-scorer in the division, with 998 at 59.86.

With Wainwright supporting him ably, Yorkshire may even have clawed back the advantage in the last hour. Until that partnership, the visitors struggled against their relegation rivals.

Andrew Gale went for a duck in the first over of the innings. The first four balls he faced from Chris Tremlett could barely have been reached with a snooker cue, but the fifth reared at him off a length, caught the shoulder of the bat and ballooned to gully.

McGrath was well forward when he was struck on the pad and did not like the decision; Taylor drove at a ball from left-armer James Tomlinson, expecting an inswinger and edging one that was slanted across him. Lyth smashed a return catch to Mascarenhas.

Gerard Brophy counter-attacked in jaunty fashion, striking three successive boundaries off David Balcombe in his 51-ball cameo of 36, before Tomlinson slipped an inswinger through his defences.

Tomlinson, the division's leading wicket-taker with 45 scalps at 26.97, soon had Adil Rashid brilliantly held at short-leg. Rashid could count himself unfortunate, as a firm clip struck Michael Brown, who somehow clung on, but Hampshire had posted a short-leg and a short-ish midwicket for him, so the batsman was aware of the danger in the shot.

Rana Naved spanked his first ball through the covers but lost his off-stump, heaving at Tahir in ungainly fashion.

That dismissal lured Rudolph out of his shell, and suddenly Hampshire's attack did not look nearly so menacing.


DISPLAY OF THE DAY

Jacques Rudolph

Initially, he was excessively watchful but towards the end of the day, he began to work the ball around and pepper the boundary. Without his latest contribution, Yorkshire would have been rolled over. Now, they have a chance to make an imposing total.