Yorkshire CCC face final day challenge at Scarborough

Looking out from that lovely spot yesterday, where fishing boats and yachts rode the silver waves, one could only marvel at the glorious beauty of this coastal setting.

Scarborough Castle stood proud in the distance, where it has gazed down on the North Sea for over 1,000 years, and holidaymakers strolled the sands below, enjoying the sunshine and refreshing sea air.

Inside the ground, as timeless and resplendent as the landscape beyond, this County Championship game swayed like the sea itself – a ripple of activity here, a flurry of action there, all gently hypnotic and regular of rhythm.

As seagulls swooped in the golden evening, scavenging for scraps left by a crowd of 2,090, a draw appeared the likeliest result.

Yorkshire were 65-2 in their second innings, a lead of 71, after they had earlier bowled out Surrey for 515 in reply to their own first-innings score of 521.

A testing 20-over period before stumps had brought the wickets of Adam Lyth and nightwatchman Dom Bess, caught behind and lbw respectively to Jamie Overton, and spectators filed away to guesthouses and restaurants satisfied with the entertainment they had seen if not yet sated. Likely draw or not, they will be coming back for more – although hopefully not for any final day flutters.

Amid unbroken blue skies and scorching temperatures, albeit with the breeze still strong and perfect for seagulls hanging on its gusts, Surrey started day three on 191-1, trailing the hosts by 330.

It took Yorkshire an hour to break the second-wicket pairing of Rory Burns and Hashim Amla, whose partnership was already worth 89 at the start of proceedings.

Amla, who resumed on 45, was the man to go, edging a drive off Jordan Thompson to Lyth at second slip, the South African scoring 79 from 131 balls and sharing 141 with Burns in total.

Burns, the idiosyncratic left-hander, who cocks his head before facing each delivery, to offset the effects of a dominant left eye, needed only six more at the start of the day for his 23rd first-class century, which he duly reached after 20 minutes, clipping Shannon Gabriel to the mid-wicket boundary,

Gabriel, the West Indies fast bowler making his Yorkshire debut, initially switched to the Peasholm Park end after delivering 10 no-balls during his eight overs from the Trafalgar Square end on day two, perhaps unsettled by the slope.

Yorkshire gained their only other wicket of the session just before lunch, off-spinner Bess having Jamie Smith caught behind from one that went on with the arm.

The second new ball was taken straight after the interval and brought two quick wickets as Surrey slipped to 303-5.

Gabriel finally arrowed one past Burns’s defences to send him on his way for 132, and Thompson captured his second wicket when Will Jacks tried to crash a wide one through the covers but chopped on.

At that point, with the deficit still above 200, Yorkshire were on top but Ben Foakes and Aaron Hardie combined in a 75-run stand that prospered as the ball got softer and bowlers more weary beneath the enervating sun. Foakes looked in sublime touch, whipping handsomely through mid-wicket and caressing stylishly through the covers, while Hardie supplied contrasts of power and muscle – not least when hooking Patterson for six into the Popular Bank and cover-driving his next ball to the boundary, which took Surrey past the follow-on figure of 372.

Patterson had his revenge, though, when bowling Hardie not long before tea.

Gabriel claimed his second wicket when Overton hooked to backward square-leg following a jaunty 32, and Bess his third and fourth when Tom Lawes came down the track and was stumped and Conor McKerr caught behind for a third-ball duck, Bess outfoxing his opponent in the flight.

Bess rounded things off by having Dan Worrall stumped to finish with 5-125 from 35 overs, in the process giving Tattersall his fifth victim to follow his career-best 180 not out in the Yorkshire first innings.

Worrall added 48 for the last-wicket with Foakes in 49 deliveries, Foakes finishing unbeaten on 86 from 156.

Worrall, the 31-year-old Australian pace bowler, should have had a wicket in the fifth over of the Yorkshire second innings but George Hill was dropped in the covers on four by McKerr, a fairly regulation chance.

Hill soon had his opponent’s measure as he on-drove Worrall to the Trafalgar Square end before sending his next ball skimming across the carpet through the covers towards the pin-striped deckchairs in front of the white marquee.