Positives for Yorkshire CCC but frustration also in Headingley stalemate

The first day of the game, which saw Sussex recover from 150-5 to 373-6 after losing the toss, was a damaging one from Yorkshire’s perspective, their bowling wayward as they ceded control.

Jhye Richardson and Logan van Beek, their overseas pace men, had a difficult time, returning a combined 1-230 from 44 overs in a closing total of 502 which, had it been around 350, say, would have put a different complexion on the game.

Richardson, especially, had a day to forget, conceding 0-105 from 16 overs. Although he tightened up somewhat with 2-59 from 13 overs in Sussex’s second innings of 324-8, it was an outing that made one feel for the Yorkshire management, given that they signed someone who was good enough to have played in the Ashes just four months ago.

Richardson will hope for better going forward but that opening day set the tone for this match. It was one that saw Yorkshire respond in kind on a benign Leeds pitch, with Fin Bean and Sam Whiteman scoring fine hundreds and Joe Root almost adding another, before the game predictably finished as a draw.

There was just a glimmer of hope going into day four that Yorkshire might be able to make something happen and push for a win.

After 500 played 500, two wickets late on day three had left the visitors 31-2 at the start of their second innings, just 22 ahead.

Had Yorkshire been able to bowl them out cheaply and dodge a forecast for rain later in the day, there was an outside chance that they could chase down a target of manageable order.

As it was, just the six wickets fell before bad light drove the teams from the field at 4.30pm, claiming the last 24 overs before hands were shaken.

The third innings of a high-scoring game with time running out can sometimes be tricky for the team that is batting.

One does not want to be blocking it out and inviting pressure; nor does one want to be overly-attacking in an effort to set up what will probably be a pointless declaration.

All one can do is look to bat normally, which is basically how Sussex played it on a day that was warm when the sun appeared.

Yorkshire, for their part, kept plugging away; no one could fault their effort or commitment.

Before a sparse crowd, Richardson opened the bowling from the Kirkstall Lane end and conceded two boundaries in his first over.

Tom Clark off-drove his fourth ball to the rope and directed the next past gully, deftly using the Australian’s pace.

Richardson was withdrawn after three overs and replaced by George Hill, who struck with his second delivery when Jack Carson, the nightwatchman, went lbw to a full-length ball. Hill and Jack White were Yorkshire’s best bowlers in this game, showing their colleagues the way.

The pitch, however, remained very placid; there was more life, one reflected, in the village of Midsomer.

There was half a chance when Whiteman put down what would have been a spectacular diving catch at mid-wicket when James Coles attacked a ball from Dom Bess; otherwise, there was little to trouble Sussex before the fourth wicket fell on the stroke of lunch.

Clark and Coles had added 108 in 21 overs when Coles played a rather strange shot, walking into a ball from Richardson and contriving to get bowled around his legs for 53.

It ended an otherwise fine innings that spanned 60 balls and contained six fours.

After the break, Jack Leaning, the former Yorkshire batsman, nonchalantly lofted Root for six towards The Howard Stand as though they were practising their hitting back in the day.

Leaning followed up by pulling a half-tracker for four and then flicking Root for another boundary to deep backward-square.

Root hit back by having Clark caught behind for 93, made from 177 balls with 16 fours, and then Leaning fell to a brilliant catch by Hill, one-handed low to his right at slip, after the fielder anticipated a reverse-sweep off Bess.

When Root bowled John Simpson, the first innings centurion, in the next over, the ball passing the outside edge to remove the off stump, Sussex were 234-7 - which then became 252-8 when Tom Price (batting with a runner after injuring his ankle) cut to backward-point to give Root his third wicket.

After tea, Fynn Hudson-Prentice and Ollie Robinson took their unbroken ninth-wicket stand to 72, the skies then gloomy, the floodlights on.