Players thwarted by flat pitch and soft ball in damp squib promotion duel

Imagine returning home with that paint and applying it to a ceiling, a wall, or perhaps a fence, whatever takes your fancy.

Imagine staring at that paint for several hours while the drying process takes effect.

And there, without having had to fork out for a ticket to the closing stages of this County Championship match, you have some idea of the general experience.

One exaggerates, of course, if only a touch, for this was not a match that will live in the memory.

Through no fault of the players, who gave their all, what should have been a corker - third versus second in Division Two, with just three points to separate them - was more the equivalent of corked wine.

Thus into the annals of obscurity slipped one of the more disappointing Championship matches ever staged at Headingley, one ruined by a hybrid pitch and a Kookaburra ball and the senseless interference of the powers-that-be.

While they strive in their cack-handed way to better prepare players for the conditions overseas in international cricket, they might wish to reflect that only 237 diehard souls bothered to turn out for the last rites here, the game meandering towards the draw that had seemed likely even before its halfway point.

Even the most potentially interesting statistic going into the day did not quite come to fruition.

It would be a crime to let all one’s painstaking research go to waste, however, so here’s what could have happened under different circumstances.

Dom Bess, the Yorkshire off-spinner, could have broken the record for the most overs bowled by a Yorkshire player in a first-class innings - 81 by Johnny Wardle, the left-arm spinner, against Derbyshire at Bradford in 1949.

As it was, Bess had extended his overnight workload of 64 overs to 70.4 when he ended the Middlesex innings by having Noah Cornwell brilliantly caught by Jordan Thompson running back from mid-off as the visitors were bowled out 25 minutes before lunch for 522 in reply to Yorkshire’s first innings 601-6 declared.

Bess’s 7-179 was his third seven-wicket haul in first-class cricket, and a marathon of skill and endurance.

Going into the day, he had said that it was his back rather than his fingers that were feeling the pace, and this performance was a tribute to his strength and fitness - not to mention indefatigable character.

As sometimes happens in the way of things, Dan Moriarty, the left-arm spinner, gained no reward despite bowling perfectly reasonably for figures of 0-174 from 61 overs.

Neither man had bowled more overs in a first-class innings - Bess’s biggest workload previously was 49 overs for Somerset against Essex at Chelmsford six years ago, while Moriarty’s was the 54 he sent down in the second innings of the previous Championship match here against Glamorgan in May.

On an overcast morning with the floodlights on, as September dawned with an autumnal feel, Bess landed the first blow after Middlesex resumed on 441-5, with Ryan Higgins on 117 and Luke Hollman 21.

After a maiden over from Moriarty at The Howard Stand end, Bess struck with the final ball of the day’s second over, Hollman caught at the third attempt by Jonny Bairstow at second slip without addition to the overnight total, which gave the spinner his fifth wicket.

Middlesex knocked off the 11 more they needed to avoid the follow-on before Higgins reached his 150 from 252 balls with 21 fours and a six.

It was difficult to see where further wickets were coming from until Ben Coad got busy with the third new ball, prospering even in conditions that were alien to seamers when he sent back Higgins for 155 - uprooting his off and middle stumps as he beat the outside edge - and then Toby Roland-Jones, whose stumps were splayed by a ball that kept low, perhaps facilitated by an under-edge.

After that, it was back to Bess.

With the opening ball of his next spell, Tom Helm turned firmly to James Wharton at short-leg before the wicket of Cornwell finished things off. It left Yorkshire with a lead of 79, which they had increased to 93 at lunch.

The rest of the day was effectively batting practice as they reached 150-2 before bad light ended play at 4.10pm. Fin Bean and Adam Lyth added 66 for the first wicket before Bean was lbw playing back to leg-spinner Hollman.

Lyth struck his second sixty of the match before patting Helm to Higgins at cover, while Wharton completed a fine half-century from 55 balls, with three fours and three sixes.

And that was that.

Finally, the paint had dried on a fixture that produced 1,273 runs for the loss of just 18 wickets.