Yorkshire blow away Essex in three-day Headingley rout

Victory by an innings and 106 runs lifted them into the safety of mid-table with two games to play. They could yet achieve a top-three finish.

This was a convincing win against depleted opponents.

An Essex side without Simon Harmer, in particular, is like a car without an engine - unlikely to get very far.

For their part, Yorkshire had the advantage of a top-class spinner in Kuldeep Yadav. The Indian took 10 wickets in a match for the first time, including a career-best 6-50 in the second innings. He underlined the difference that such a star import can make.

The biggest “difference-maker”, though, is arguably George Hill. Match figures of 5-14 from 15.4 overs spoke for themselves, adding to an increasingly impressive body of work.

Hill has 44 First Division wickets this season at 17.97, in addition to averaging over 30 with the bat. Oh, and he can catch pigeons in the slips. What’s not to like?

Hill was the man who got the ball rolling on a cloudy day three - but only after Yorkshire had been frustrated for almost an hour.

George Bell, the 23-year-old Lancashire wicketkeeper/batter, signed on loan by Essex as cover for the injured Michael Pepper, marked his first innings for his new club with a fine half-century, going on to the top score of 64 not out from 118 balls with six fours and a six.

Classy and compact, Bell had resumed with 42 to his name out of 137-7 as Essex responded to Yorkshire’s first innings 390. He received good support from Zaman Akhter, who had 19 overnight in a stand already worth 40.

Nothing comes easily, though, even in one-sided matches such as this.

An initial burst from Jack White from the Howard Stand End and Ben Cliff from the Kirkstall Lane End produced some challenging fare but no reward.

Only when Hill replaced Cliff did the inevitable happen, the 25-year-old soon having Akhter caught behind to end a stubborn partnership of 68.

It was the first of three wickets in 13 balls as Yorkshire then wrapped up the innings faster than you could say “I love The Hundred” before the inevitable arrival of men in white coats.

Yadav spun one back sharply to bowl Mitchell Killeen, then Hill bowled Sam Cook - substituted into this game after being left out of the Test team - for a golden duck.

Essex were all out for 171 - Yadav taking four of the wickets and Hill and Bess three apiece.

Would Yorkshire enforce the follow-on?

You bet they would.

Leading by 219, they had another crack at the creaking Essex line-up and were right on it from the start - the second innings beginning with a flurry of plays-and-misses against White and Hill.

Hill - who else? - made the first breakthroughs: Dean Elgar caught behind, then Tom Westley lbw playing around his front pad.

When Yadav had Charlie Allison caught at short mid-on by James Wharton off a leading edge, then Matt Critchley bowled through the gate first ball by a sharply turning delivery, Essex staggered into lunch at 14-4. They looked not so much in need of a sandwich or two as a stiff drink or five. “Make ours large ones, please, and we’ll skip the grub.”

Yadav did not get his hat-trick after the break - but he struck again with his sixth ball after the interval, Luc Benkenstein edging to Hill at slip.

Paul Walter and that man Bell again added 40 for the sixth wicket before Bell was caught behind playing back to Yadav, leaving the score at 66-6 - a devilish predicament if ever there was one.

Walter somewhat impudently lofted Bess’s second ball of the innings for six but Bess was soon in the wickets again.

When Shane Snater left an off-break that rapped him on the pads, up went the finger of umpire James Middlebrook and it was 71-7, the sound of cars being started already audible.

Yadav had missed out on a five-wicket haul in the first innings but not this time. He ripped one back to bowl Akhter as he left it alone outside off stump as the visitors slumped to 84-8.

Paul Walter took a wild swing at Bess and was stumped for 48, a shot that looked as though it should have been played with a white flag rather than a bat.

The game ended when Yadav bowled Cook for a single, Essex all out for 113 and absolutely no match for Yorkshire.