Matty Revis and Ben Coad combine to give Yorkshire CCC good chance of win
THE game had been meandering, like someone strolling around the cobbled streets of York, but then came Matty Revis and Ben Coad...
In the space of two hours and three minutes either side of tea, the Yorkshire ninth-wicket pair combined in a partnership which, allied to three late wickets, transformed a contest that had been drifting along slowly, giving their side a great chance of victory.
It will not be a gimme - the pitch remains slow, while the Kookaburra ball remains comfortably the worst thing since unsliced bread, but their stand of 169 from 195 balls gave Yorkshire a first innings lead of 91 and, by stumps, Essex were 33-3, still 58 behind.
“We’ve just got to be disciplined, not go searching for it,” said Coad, who hit 89 from 110 balls with eight fours and three sixes. “We’re going to have to be patient; it’s still a decent pitch.”
Of his innings, he added: “I chanced my arm a little bit, and thankfully it paid off. We’ve had some good partnerships in the past, and he (Revis) is great to have at the other end.”
Revis, who made 150 from 187 balls with 18 fours and two sixes, with both players achieving career-best scores, repaid the compliment: “The way that Coady plays takes the pressure off me; he’s the entertainer. I think it helped us that we didn’t think too far ahead when the partnership started.
“On a personal level, I just missed out on a hundred last week, so really happy to get over the line this time. The bowlers backed it up brilliantly, and we’re in a really good position.”
There seemed no chance of a Yorkshire win when Revis and Coad joined forces 50 minutes after lunch. Dom Bess had just been adjudged caught behind down the leg-side off Shane Snater, a decision with which he seemed less than enthused, and the total was 273-8 as the hosts replied to Essex’s first innings 368.
Revis, though, is in excellent form (last week he was left stranded on 93 against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge), and Coad is one of the better No 10s to have strapped on pads.
Although the benign conditions no doubt helped, the pair played superbly and scored at a rate out of keeping with what had gone before. The only shame was that Coad did not reach his hundred, which would have delighted the 800 or so spectators on an overcast day, and which he certainly deserved.
Instead, he was bowled eyeing up the straight boundary off Matt Critchley, the leg-spinner, who then brought the Yorkshire innings to a close in his next over when Revis was caught at deep mid-wicket.
Revis and Coad’s stand was the highest against Essex in Championship cricket, beating the 160 unbroken by Patsy Hendren and Jack Durston for Middlesex at Leyton in 1927. There have been only six higher ninth-wicket partnerships for Yorkshire in first-class matches, and none higher against Essex, this one eclipsing the 124 by Peter Hartley (one of the umpires in this game) and Paul Jarvis at Chelmsford in 1986.
Revis, whose third first-class hundred this was, played confidently in attack and defence and was particularly strong through the offside. He hits the ball with great power but also possesses a deft touch, as he showed when steering Snater to the backward-point boundary to reach three figures from the seventh ball after tea.
As a footnote, his was the first hundred by a Yorkshire player in a first-class game at the lovely York ground, albeit this is only the second such fixture. Coad, for his part, is one of only two survivors from that 2019 contest, along with Adam Lyth, who chipped in with the next-highest score of 84 as Yorkshire reached a final total of 459.
Lyth had 65 to his name at the start of the day, and captain Jonny Bairstow 14, with the score 143-3, a deficit of 225. Lyth had added just one to his overnight score when he was badly dropped by Dean Elgar at slip off Khaleel Ahmed, whom Bairstow then cut firmly for four.
Bairstow swept another boundary off Simon Harmer, the spinner, but fell with the total on 169, caught behind trying to uppercut a delivery from Khaleel that climbed on him.
Khaleel then conceded five penalty runs when he threw the ball back at Lyth in his follow-through and hit him on the foot, the left-hander’s pain no doubt eased by the fact that he passed the milestone of 14,000 Championship runs during his innings, a fine effort.
A second century of the season for Lyth against Essex looked on the cards but was not to be, the left-hander edging behind off Snater.
George Hill was trapped lbw pushing forward at Snater, then Will Sutherland pinned lbw by Harmer.
When Essex batted a second time, Coad had Paul Walter lbw and Tom Westley – the Essex captain and first innings centurion – caught down the leg-side.
Hill bowled Elgar to cap a remarkable second half of the day for the hosts, who were fittingly led off by Revis and Coad, the heroes of the hour as the crowd applauded warmly.