Time and wet weather set to ruin Yorkshire's hopes

Rain is predicted for the Manchester area – hardly a novelty in this part of the world – after three days of refreshingly pleasant conditions.

Weathermen, however, are not always reliable and prone to inaccuracy.

Players and spectators are as likely to rock up at Old Trafford this morning with the sun beating down from a cobalt sky as to be lamenting their luck with the elements.

With or without the intervention of poor weather, the smart money is on a draw following a purposeful Lancashire fightback in glorious sunshine yesterday.

Yorkshire went into day three firmly in charge and with high hopes of forcing their fourth victory in nine Championship games.

But their advantage was checked by a team who followed the traditional Roses maxim of "Give 'em nowt" to claw themselves back into the game.

At stumps, Yorkshire were 111-3 in their second innings, a lead of 200, a more-than-healthy position albeit one that looked like being significantly stronger.

The equation at the start of play, indeed, promised the probability of a Yorkshire win as opposed to the possibility of a Lancashire escape.

Having floundered in the face of some splendid spin bowling from Adil Rashid and Azeem Rafiq on the second evening, Lancashire were 187-6 in reply to Yorkshire's first innings 447 – still 111 short of avoiding the follow-on.

Particularly given the weather forecast, Yorkshire's best chance of winning appeared to rely on their capturing the last four wickets quickly and making Lancashire bat again.

But Jacques Rudolph's men ran into a wall of resistance as Lancashire's lower-order showed a stickability that put their recognised batsmen to shame.

Rudolph, acting captain in Andrew Gale's absence, entrusted the day's first over to Tino Best, the West Indian pace bowler who is searching desperately for form. Best had struggled to find his line and length on day two and fared little better when he opened up from the Stretford end.

His first delivery was a no-ball and near-beamer, while the penultimate ball of his opening over was a huge offside wide.

Another offside wide followed in Best's second over before he was gifted a wicket by Tom Smith, who played a ghastly drive at another wide delivery and was caught and bowled to leave Lancashire 194-7.

After a wild full toss flew past Gerard Brophy for four leg-byes, Best was withdrawn from the attack after only three overs as Oliver Hannon-Dalby was brought on to partner Rafiq.

Rather than let Rafiq tie them down, Luke Sutton and Glen Chapple decided attack was the best form of defence as they sought to be positive against the off-spinner. Chapple got Rafiq away a few times before trying to be positive once too often and mis-timing to mid-off, where Steve Patterson took the catch.

At 235-8, Lancashire were still 63 shy of the follow-on figure, but, by the time the ninth-wicket pair of Sutton and Kyle Hogg were separated, they had lifted the total to 356.

Hogg drove with the authority of a top-order player on his way to a career-best 88, while Sutton nudged and nurdled in generally comfortable fashion.

The stand was worth 121 in 44 overs when Hogg was caught at cover off Rashid – not far short of Lancashire's record ninth-wicket partnership of 142 by Les Poidevin and Alexander Kermode against Sussex at Eastbourne in 1907.

Two runs after Hogg's departure, Lancashire's innings ended when Daren Powell fell to a bat-pad catch off Rashid, who finished with 5-90.

Rafiq's 4-92 was a career-best and there were times when the 19-year-old looked the more threatening of the spin twins.

The main interest at the start of Yorkshire's second innings was whether Adam Lyth would become the first man this summer to score 1,000 first-class runs.

The opener needed 47 to achieve his target after Surrey's Mark Ramprakash, his main rival, managed only 30 against Derbyshire at Chesterfield to leave him agonisingly short on 989.

But Lyth, too, finished just short when he pulled Hogg to deep mid-wicket for 29.

The 22-year-old should still be first to the milestone, however, with Yorkshire back in Championship action on Monday and Surrey not playing again in the competition until July 20.

Yorkshire lost Rudolph early in their second innings when the South African aimed an expansive drive at Powell and was well caught by wicketkeeper Sutton, moving to his left.

Jonathan Bairstow was caught at point off the left-arm spinner Simon Kerrigan shortly before stumps, but Anthony McGrath went to his second half-century of the game to lift his own tournament tally to 765 – a terrific comeback after last summer's disappointments.