Middlesex v Yorkshire: Yorkshire make intelligent use of stark conditions

The skies were predominantly battleship-grey, spectators sat wrapped in thick winter coats, and the unseasonably strong winds that battered the ground were more suited to Scarborough in January than St John’s Wood in June.

The threat of rain was always in the air and concerned looks never far from the faces of the umpires, who often seemed to be wondering whether to take the players off the field for drizzle or bad light.

And dear Old Father Time, perched precariously at the top of the Mound Stand, could be seen spinning around maniacally in the malevolent gales, so much so that you feared years of history were going to spin off altogether and that the weather vane might end up in somebody’s back garden.

It was certainly no day to be a batsman.

In conditions best observed from the protection of the pavilion, Yorkshire delivered a model example of how to exploit them as they took an iron grip against title rivals Middlesex.

After making the home team follow-on by dismissing them for 175 in reply to their own 390, Yorkshire had them 137-4 in their second innings at stumps on day three.

Victory would send Yorkshire top of the Championship at the halfway stage of the season, although leaders Sussex – five points ahead of them going into this game – are only at the midpoint of their match against Surrey at Arundel.

For all that overhead conditions yesterday were mostly in their favour, Yorkshire used them intelligently as the pace attack that has performed so well this summer continued to shine.

After Middlesex resumed on 
16-1, Yorkshire concentrated on a full length and were rewarded accordingly, wickets going as quickly as clouds across the sky.

Ryan Sidebottom landed the first blow from the Pavilion End when he induced an edge from Joe Denly that was well taken at third slip by Joe Sayers, who followed the ball with both hands to his right, as though passing a parcel to the fielder in the gully.

It took Middlesex half-an-hour to find the boundary, Chris Rogers striking Steve Patterson through mid-off towards the Nursery End, a shot that sent a party of schoolchildren into paroxysms of ear-splitting euphoria.

After bad light forced a 20-minute stoppage, Rogers smashed Sidebottom for successive offside boundaries towards Old Father Time before falling to the third ball from the man who replaced him; Liam Plunkett, back in the Championship team after a thigh strain, had the Middlesex captain caught by wicketkeeper Andy Hodd.

With Plunkett seemingly liable to blast out anyone at any moment, and with Patterson as probing as a torturer at the Spanish Inquisition, Yorkshire steadily slipped through the gears.

Patterson trapped Neil Dexter lbw with a full delivery and Middlesex limped into lunch on 
67-4, no doubt more grateful for the respite than the refreshments.

In the fourth over after the resumption, Plunkett produced a devastating yorker that uprooted John Simpson’s middle stump, closely followed by another fine ball to Adam London, brilliantly caught at third slip by Sayers, diving full length to his left.

Gareth Berg, a 32-year-old South African, held up the visitors with an innings of 54 from 69 balls with eight fours, but after Sidebottom pinned James Harris in front, Middlesex’s hopes of saving the follow-on effectively ended when Berg was trapped lbw by Patterson to leave them 169-9.

The innings was promptly terminated by Patterson, who had Corey Collymore caught behind to finish with 4-39, Plunkett 
returning 4-50 and Sidebottom 2-48. With his bowlers still fresh and the weather forecast patchy, Andrew Gale enforced the follow-on with 46 overs remaining.

Thoughts of a three-day finish might even have crossed his mind when it took Sidebottom all of five balls of the second innings to remove key man Rogers, the Australian playing away from his body and edging to Hodd, whose glove-work was once again safer than the Bank of England.

Wicket-taking was never likely to be as easy second time around and Yorkshire were frustrated by a second-wicket stand of 69 in 21 overs between Sam Robson and Denly, which made useful inroads into the deficit of 215.

The partnership was attractive but rather like the archetypal English summer – good while it lasted, but not nearly long enough.

Adil Rashid, whose leg-spin was not needed during the first innings, but whose presence allowed Gale to rest his seamers in the follow-on, got rid of Denly with a beautiful delivery that drew him forward, beat him and then nestled in the gloves of Hodd, who whipped off the bails faster than you could say “Old Father Time”.

Robson progressed to within four runs of a half-century before he was bowled by Rashid, twirling from the Nursery End, who then had London lbw as the left-hander tried to work him to leg.

At that point there were still 16 overs left but Simpson and Dexter negotiated them to reduce the arrears to 78, the home team’s unbeaten record in serious peril.