Adam Lyth helps Yorkshire CCC to a draw in Cardiff

Had they not heard that Glamorgan had declared five minutes before the break, setting Yorkshire 295 to win from a minimum of 68 overs?

Yet there they all were, going about their Bank Holiday perambulations without a care in the world beside the shimmering waters of the River Taff, completely oblivious, or so it seemed, to the match situation a few yards away.

More fool them.

For those who did have their priorities right in the Welsh capital, there came the reward of an entertaining finish.

At tea, Yorkshire were 125-1 from 34 overs, needing another 170 from 34 overs and with Adam Lyth and Sam Whiteman going well. They couldn’t, could they?

However, the loss of Whiteman and James Wharton just after the break, both to the excellent leg-spinner Mason Crane, who followed his first innings 5-55 with 3-99, helped Glamorgan hit back in a final session in which Yorkshire held out for parity, George Hill and Logan van Beek negotiating the last four overs as the visitors closed on 239-7.

All credit, first, to Glamorgan for a positive declaration that surprised many of the locals in terms of its timing. Decisions like that make the four-day game watchable; why, even those on the Taff Trail might have found this interesting.

All credit, too, to the evergreen Lyth, who at 38 somehow remains at the top of his game.

The opener played beautifully for the top score of 97, made from 150 balls with 14 fours, falling to a catch behind off the spinner Ben Kellaway agonisingly short of a 41st first-class century.

Glamorgan had the better of things after crashing to 28-4 on day one, when Jack White and Ben Coad put the visitors on top, up until the end of their second innings and the attacking declaration by captain Kiran Carlson.

For Yorkshire, there was plenty to work on but plenty of good things to take away too. A useful workout for the first game of the season.

The opening exchanges of day four were all about steady accumulation in the sunshine after the hosts resumed on 111-3 in their second innings, a lead of 187.

Carlson and Colin Ingram safely added 42 runs in 15 overs in the “big first hour”, the end of which brought the day’s first wicket, Dom Bess bowling Carlson for 53 with a ball that turned back sharply and kept low, ending a stand with Ingram worth 76.

Ingram followed his first innings hundred with another fifty, the South African left-hander then opening his shoulders as Glamorgan sought to set up a target.

Ingram slog-swept Bess for six, lapped White for four and again showed the class that brought him 1,076 runs in just 12 Championship games last year at 56.63; a fine player indeed.

Ingram had moved to 75 in two-and-a-quarter hours’ batting when he became Bess’s fourth scalp of the innings - and seventh of the match - when he lofted the off-spinner to Matty Revis at long-off.

It immediately brought the declaration at 218-5, with Kellaway unbeaten on 28 and Bess’s figures 4-87 from 30.5 overs.

The absence of Jonny Bairstow - substituted out of this match at the halfway stage with a small fracture in his right thumb - hardly helped Yorkshire’s quest to reach their target.

However, a flurry of early boundaries from Lyth set a positive tone, then Fin Bean pulled Crane’s first two balls for four and six in another statement of intent.

The openers had shared 67 in 15 overs when Bean was lbw trying to defend Crane into the leg-side, after which Lyth and Whiteman added 58.

Whiteman fell to the second ball after tea, chipping to mid-wicket, then Wharton was bowled attempting to pull.

Will Luxton aimed across the line at Ryan Hadley and was lbw and, after Lyth fell, Revis was caught behind off Hadley, who then had Bess taken at first slip by Ingram.