Sussex v Yorkshire: Lyth digs in to raise Yorkshire prospects at Hove

A brace of failures against leaders Durham, which left him with just one half-century in 12 Championship innings, had seen his place under threat from Alex Lees.

After much deliberation, Yorkshire opted for the man with experience, with Lyth having played 80 first-class games compared with Lees’s 10, reasoning it could prove vital in the pressure of the Championship run-in.

If that decision looked to have backfired when Lyth dropped a standard slip catch that allowed Sussex to recover from 164-7 to 292 all out, it was most certainly vindicated when the left-hander prospered in his primary function as an opening batsman.

Lyth’s 93 on the second day at Hove, which led Yorkshire to 
246-4, a deficit of 46, might not have been his highest innings for the county or his most aesthetically attractive.

It might not even be in a winning cause, if an indifferent weather forecast for the second half of the match is to be believed.

But if Yorkshire go on to win this game and/or the Championship, with the gap between themselves and Durham now standing at 13.5 points, they may well have reason to be grateful to Lyth.

For the 25-year-old laid the foundation for a healthy total, one that Yorkshire will hope to turn into a match-winning one – weather permitting.

What was particularly impressive about Lyth’s innings was that it was not, in the nicest possible sense, a Lyth-type innings.

Normally, you associate him with fluent scoring and flourishing cover drives, but almost as impressive as the runs he scored yesterday was the way that he defended, the balls that he left, and his powers of discipline and concentration.

By his own admission, Lyth gets out far too often after getting in, undoing all the hard work with a careless edge here or a lofted catch there, making attractive cameos rather than substantial contributions.

Although he missed out on a deserved century when he dabbed the left-arm spinner Ashar Zaidi to slip, he could feel proud of a mature performance – one that answered director of cricket Martyn Moxon’s pre-match call for Yorkshire to focus on doing “the boring stuff” well: namely, taking it one ball at a time, session by session.

Not that Lyth was the only headline act on a grey day at Hove.

Kane Williamson, the New Zealand right-hander who scored 84 and 97 against Durham, followed up with an unbeaten 80 – all a far cry from his golden duck on debut against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge.

Lyth might not have been particularly Lyth-like yesterday, but Williamson was unmistakably Williamson, performing in a typically controlled manner and playing the ball right under his nose.

Williamson is one of those batsmen who accumulates without you particularly noticing, the sort whose contribution can sometimes pass you by but which is only too clear from the scorecard.

This was an “over my dead body” sort of effort, the 23-year-old facing 230 balls, eight of which he sent to the boundary.

As with Lyth’s innings, its importance in laying a platform could not be understated, with both blunting an attack made to work extremely hard, with the pitch offering little by way of assistance.

Yorkshire’s bowlers had also been made to work hard – in their case, by a lower-order that rallied after the top-order failed.

When last man Lewis Hatchett was caught by Lyth at second slip off Ryan Sidebottom, 15 minutes into yesterday’s action, the last three wickets had added 128, wicketkeeper Ben Brown supplying 84 of them in an undefeated performance after Lyth had dropped him on 14 off Steve Patterson.

Sidebottom finished with 4-50 from 15.5 overs, the former England man once again the pick of the attack.

Phil Jaques was an early casualty in Yorkshire’s reply, lbw to a full-length delivery from Steve Magoffin for 21, enough to take Jaques past 15,000 first-class runs. Magoffin was excellent, conceding only 29 runs in his 25 overs, and head-and-shoulders above more workmanlike colleagues.

Lyth took 114 balls over his fifty, the landmark reached with a delightful clip to the mid-wicket boundary off James Anyon, while Williamson got to the milestone one ball quicker, the pair adding 164 in 61 overs.

Anyon claimed two late wickets when he had Andrew Gale caught behind and bowled Jonny Bairstow, the wicketkeeper having struck his previous two deliveries for four.

Williamson, however, will fight another day – one that could bring him his first century for his adopted county.

Yorkshire have announced a three-year kit sponsorship deal with PUMA.

Andy Dawson, Yorkshire’s commercial director, said: “It is important for us that the players look and feel good when they are representing Yorkshire, and this agreement ensures we will have the best available sportswear and technical kit supplier.”