Lyth and Bairstow give Yorkshire hope of a first shared home success for Root and Brook

Such an anomaly surely must change - even in these days of central contracts and limited availability of the top players - and how Yorkshire’s supporters hope it will here.

The club has had a difficult start to the season, with one win, two draws and two defeats leaving them eighth in Division One.

Root did his bit on the first day’s play, scoring 44 as Yorkshire reached 362-4 after being sent into bat, with both England men playing together for perhaps the only time in the Championship this year.

Brook was less successful, managing just seven, with both falling to Matthew Fisher, their ex-Yorkshire team-mate, who starred for Surrey with 3-73.

Instead it was Adam Lyth and Jonny Bairstow who shone with the bat, scoring 138 and 116 respectively to give Yorkshire what looked a very good total.

The pair shared 241 for the fifth-wicket in 60.2 overs, Lyth making his 41st first-class hundred and Bairstow his 32nd and first as captain, also reaching 15,000 runs on his 237th first-class appearance when his score was 88.

It was typical of Bairstow to step up when it mattered, a captain producing a captain’s innings when the chips were down in the wider sense.

When he came to the crease in the seventh over after lunch, Yorkshire had just lost Root and Brook and were teetering rather at 121-4.

Surrey, it seemed, were in the ascendant, the one blot on their copybook - albeit a considerable one, as it turned out - a dropped catch by Ryan Patel at third slip off Sean Abbott that reprieved Lyth on 31 when the total was 64.

The day could easily have gone pear-shaped for a Yorkshire team coming off the back of a 377-run defeat to Warwickshire at Edgbaston, the second-heaviest in the club’s history in terms of runs, but thanks to England-past rather than England-present, it actually did the opposite.

Before a crowd of around 2,000, who were well-wrapped up on this chilly May day, Lyth had walked to the middle with a new opening partner in the form of Will Luxton, the 23-year-old right-hander.

Luxton came into the side at the expense of Fin Bean; Root replaced James Wharton, and Jhye Richardson his fellow overseas pace bowler Logan van Beek, with this Richardson’s final match of his overseas stint.

It was tough luck on Wharton, who had joint top-scored in the first innings at Edgbaston and hit 92 in the preceding victory down in Somerset. For their part, Surrey were without batsman Ollie Pope, who suffered a thumb injury during the previous game at Nottinghamshire, one in which pace bowler Gus Atkinson was struck while batting by Josh Tongue, his England team-mate, which caused him to miss this clash with concussion.

Fisher - recalled to the Test squad earlier this week - opened the bowling from The Howard Stand end and conceded two fours in his first over, Luxton deflecting him through third-man and then striking him through the covers to a very short boundary towards the West Stand.

Luxton had not added to his score when Fisher, with the opening ball of his third over, had him clipping off his pads to Dom Sibley at mid-wicket, the batsman throwing back his head in self-recrimination. Matty Revis came in at No 3 and returned to the dressing room half-an-hour later, bowled shouldering arms by Jordan Clark.

Lyth had got into his stride with a couple of fours down the ground off Dan Worrall, and then another through point, before Patel’s bad miss proved to be a turning point.

Root got off the mark to his second ball, which he flicked from Clark to the mid-wicket boundary, one of nine fours during a 52-ball innings ended from the sixth ball after lunch.

It was well-pitched up by Fisher and Root was lbw trying to work it through mid-wicket, the batsman not seeming particularly enamoured with the umpire’s verdict. When Brook then shimmied down the track and tried to drive Fisher through the offside, the ball flew to Rory Burns at first slip.

Before long, Lyth had gone to his fifty from 124 balls, a milestone that broke a sequence of six low scores for him, and Bairstow had on-driven Worrall to the Kirkstall Lane boundary, one of the day’s most eye-catching strokes.

Bairstow raised his fifty just before tea, from 89 balls with seven fours and a pulled six off Abbott, as Yorkshire reached 232-4 at the interval. In the final session the runs kept coming, Lyth advancing to his hundred from 220 balls and Bairstow to his from 160 deliveries.

Prior to the game, Gavin Hamilton, the Yorkshire general manager of cricket, had predicted that “somebody is going to feel the pain” of Bairstow’s bat.

Move over Nostradamus and Old Mother Shipton.

Hamilton was right.

The recipient was Surrey.