Cricket latest: Yorkshire’s stubborn resistance ended by Durham

Set an improbable 490 in four full sessions for victory, Yorkshire held out until 5.15pm when the last wicket went down at 343.

Richard Pyrah and Jonathan Bairstow led the rearguard but the hosts finally went down by 146 runs.

Pyrah defied Durham until the very end with a championship-best 87 and Bairstow earlier hit an aggressive 81 off 118 balls with 16 firmly struck boundaries.

Defeat on such a big scale still came as something as a shock for Yorkshire after their opening nine-wicket win at Worcestershire but the result had plenty of plusses in it for Durham who had seen Hampshire bat all day for a draw in their first match of the season.

Graham Onions marked his return to first-class action after a prolonged back injury with match figures of six for 109 and Michael Richardson, a late stand-in for the injured Phil Mustard, scored two half-centuries and held seven catches behind the stumps on his championship debut.

Yorkshire began the final day on 88 for two, 401 runs in arrears, and they knew that a marathon effort was called for if they were to manage to save the match.

They stumbled almost immediately, however, with Joe Root failing to add to his overnight 38 when Onions had him caught behind by Richardson.

Six runs later, skipper Andrew Gale went back instead of forward to leg-spinner Scott Borthwick to provide Richardson with another catch.

The writing appeared to be on the wall when Gerard Brophy then pushed at Callum Thorp and was lbw for 20, the first time in three innings from the start of the season that he has been dismissed.

Yorkshire lost a fourth wicket in the morning session as Adil Rashid flicked Liam Plunkett down the legside to make it 158 for six, but there was the first sign of a fightback either side of the interval from Bairstow and Pyrah in a 67-run stand in 16 overs.

Bairstow swept Ian Blackwell for consecutive boundaries and cover drove Plunkett to the rope to register his 50 with his 10th four while the increasingly confident Pyrah cut and straight drove Plunkett for four and three in an over in which Bairstow also found the ropes with a back-foot cover drive.

Borthwick’s switch to the Kirkstall Lane end was the signal for Bairstow to hammer his first three balls for four but the bowler gained his revenge shortly afterwards as the batsman aimed to cut and Michael Di Venuto held on to a smart catch at slip.

It was Bairstow’s 16th championship half-century for Yorkshire but the gifted wicketkeeper-batsman has yet to go on to register a century.

Yorkshire’s revival was continued by Pyrah and Sidebottom, the eighth-wicket pair holding out until tea by which time they had added 72 together.

Pyrah, particularly, played some splendid shots and he produced a classic cover drive off Onions to go to his 50 from 89 balls with eight boundaries.

The stand became an eighth-wicket record for Yorkshire against Durham when it exceeded the 82 by Joe Sayers and Darren Gough in 2007 and Pyrah went on to overtake his championship best of 78 against Worcestershire at New Road in 2005.

When 98 had been added, however, Sidebottom, on 31, edged Plunkett to give Richardson his fifth catch of the innings, and Steve Patterson was lbw to his first delivery.

Moin Ashraf survived a confident lbw appeal off the hat-trick ball but then battled away bravely until Pyrah was pinned lbw by Borthwick to end the match.

He had batted for 211 minutes, faced 184 balls and hit 12 boundaries.