Patterson gets his "bunny" as Yorkshire fight hard to stay in the hunt

For the seventh time in as many County Championship games, spanning their meetings in first-class cricket stretching back to 2010, Patterson got rid of Cook yesterday.

Bowling from around the wicket at The Howard Stand end, with the sun streaming across the ground just before midday, Patterson slanted a ball back into the left-hander to which Cook should perhaps have gone forward and which trapped him plumb on the crease.

It was one of the easiest appeals that Rob White, the Chelmsford-born former Northamptonshire batsman, will be asked to uphold in his umpiring career, and Cook was on his way for 23, his disappointment clear as he trudged off the field no doubt chuntering to himself “that ruddy Patterson”, or words to that effect.

In that split-second of action between the two old-stagers (Patterson is 38 years young and Cook 37), it was a reminder that Patterson still has what it takes to dislodge the best.

While Yorkshire’s members and supporters continue to debate the club’s decision to release him at the end of the season after nearly 20 years’ service, Patterson must debate whether to prolong his career at another county.

It is understood that he has offers to consider, plus the needs of a young family to factor into his deliberations, and no doubt he will choose the right course of action.

Cook’s wicket was an important one in the context of the day - when is it otherwise? - as Essex responded to Yorkshire’s first innings 134 with 225, Yorkshire reaching 87-2 in their second innings, a deficit of four, at the game’s midway point.

In this, Patterson’s penultimate Championship appearance at Headingley, at least for Yorkshire, the cricket proceeded along the compelling lines often associated with low-scoring contests.

The sort of cricket where a wicket could fall at any moment is invariably the most gripping, although try telling that to Sir Alastair et al, especially when, as happened here, the occasional ball kept lower than expected.

That partly explained why there were so many lbws, six in the Essex innings, and why run-making was never a leisurely pursuit.

Only Shane Snater, the Essex No 8, made it appear so, and even then he could never have felt entirely comfortable on his way to 46 from 48 balls, the Dutch international chancing his arm in an effective tactic that helped to turn a 29-run deficit when he came to the crease into a 56-run lead by the time he departed to a catch at mid-wicket, having added 75 in 15 overs with Dan Lawrence.

Lawrence, the 25-year-old right-hander with 11 Tests to his name, the last of them in the West Indies in March, played the perfect anchor role to suit the match situation while still keeping the scoreboard operators sufficiently busy.

A lovely driver of the ball, through onside or off, Lawrence watched that ball until it was right beneath his nose, as though he had a particular fondness, in fact, for the aroma of leather.

Having arrived at the crease halfway through the morning session, Lawrence survived until the third ball after tea, to which he aimed something of a ‘nothing shot’ outside the off stump at George Hill and was caught behind.

Lawrence hit 61 from 145 balls with eight fours, the highest score of the match so far, even if he and his colleagues did enjoy the best of the batting conditions on a second day that was as sunny throughout as the first day had been consistently gloomy.

Just as conditions were considerably improved from day one, when the last 43 overs were lost to rain, so there was a much larger crowd in the ground also - perhaps 2,000 or so compared to around 1,000.

They saw Yorkshire make a bright start as Thompson struck with his first ball of the day - the first of the second over from The Howard Stand end - which slanted across the left-handed Nick Browne and uprooted his off stump.

Patterson almost got Cook before he actually did, Tom Kohler-Cadmore apparently missing, as opposed to dropping, an opportunity at first slip which disappeared for four.

Cook’s departure followed that of Tom Westley, leg-before to Thompson, but Essex consolidated to reach 79-3 at lunch. That became 80-4 three balls after the break when Thompson pinned Matt Critchley, and the game was even-stevens when Ben Coad trapped Feroze Khushi with one that kept low, Coad’s 200th first-class wicket on his 51st appearance.

Coad claimed another scalp when Adam Rossington was similarly defeated by a ball that kept low, but Snater and Lawrence turned things again with their 75-run stand.

After both fell, Thompson had Ben Allison lbw and the innings ended when Hill had a swinging Sam Cook caught behind, Thompson returning 4-60 and Hill 3-22.

Adam Lyth fell cheaply in Yorkshire’s second innings, pushing an edge to the wicketkeeper off Sam Cook, and walked off suitably disgusted with himself.

Fin Bean played handsomely for an unbeaten 41, adding 62 with Hill, who departed three balls before the scheduled close when he edged Jamie Porter to Patterson’s “bunny” at first slip.