Yorkshire CCC in commanding position at halfway stage in Cardiff

Yorkshire’s bowlers exploited the conditions, taking six wickets in the morning session as Glamorgan slipped from 12-0 overnight to 98-6 at lunch in reply to the visitors’ first innings 361.

Thereafter, it was thinner gruel for the bowlers as the wall-to-wall sunshine of the first day returned, Glamorgan recovering to 239 all-out - thereby avoiding the follow-on figure of 212 - before Yorkshire reached 116-1 at the game’s halfway stage, holding a lead of 238.

And so the visitors remain in the box seat in Cardiff, where they are seeking a fifth win in six Championship games.

The forecast for Friday suggests that there could be showers, while the Sophia Gardens pitch can sometimes go flat, like a pancake trapped beneath the wheel of a steamroller.

The chances of Yorkshire losing this game, though, would not appear high (famous last words), which would at least ensure that they hold a seven-point lead over Middlesex going into the final round of fixtures should this match be drawn and should Middlesex, as is likely, win their current game in Derby.

The mathematics are complex and invariably fast-moving but, in a nutshell, it is a two-horse race between Yorkshire, in second, and Middlesex, in third, for the final promotion spot behind leaders Sussex.

“All we can do is focus on ourselves and take it from there,” said Ben Coad, the Yorkshire pace bowler, who, along with Matty Fisher, took 4-55, the pair much too good for the Glamorgan batsmen.

“We’ve got a nice lead now and there’s a lot of time left. We’ve had a great day there, and there’s still a bit in the pitch, particularly with the newer ball.”

Coad’s haul lifted him to 48 wickets for the Championship summer (average 16.31) and to 294 at first-class level (average 19.61).

"Getting to 50 wickets has been a target,” he said. “It’s something that ‘Gibbo’ (head coach Ottis Gibson) is really keen on me to try and get. Thankfully, it’s getting closer and closer. Hopefully now I get over the line.”

Coad it was who took the first wicket in the third over of day two, Sam Northeast squared-up and trapped leg-before. It has been a feast or famine season for the ex-Yorkshire loanee; scores of 335 not out, 187 and 142 not out (the latter at Headingley in May) have been offset by 18 innings of less than 20.

Fisher, operating from the Cathedral Road end, which seemed to help the outswinger, then took two wickets in two balls to leave Glamorgan 28-3. Asa Tribe flashed to second slip, where Adam Lyth made a sharp opportunity to his left look ridiculously straightforward, and Kiran Carlson nicked off to George Hill at first, rather walking into a weak defensive push.

After the first 36 runs all came in boundaries, convincing or otherwise, the first single was followed by the fall of the fourth wicket, Coad having Ben Kellaway caught behind from one that nipped.

Jordan Thompson was unlucky not to strike as Coad and Fisher took a well-earned breather before Fisher returned to take two more wickets in the run-up to lunch, Chris Cooke driving at a wide one and paying the price to a tumbling Bairstow, who kept superbly, then Timm van der Gugten adjudged lbw working across the line.

It was the final act of the session as Glamorgan lunched on that precarious 98-6, 41 of them to Colin Ingram, the South African left-hander, the leading scorer in this season’s Championship.

Ingram had added 82 to his tally all told (now standing at 1,252 at an average of 96.30) when he was bowled by Dom Bess as he made room to cut, having faced 117 balls and hit 13 fours.

It was Bess’s fifth delivery from the River Taff end, the wicket coming four overs after Thompson had Mason Crane top-edging a hook to a leaping Bairstow to end a seventh-wicket partnership with Ingram worth 63.

It was an alliance that held up Yorkshire for 50 minutes after lunch and took Glamorgan a long way towards avoiding the follow-on threat, which was then averted by the ninth-wicket duo of James Harris and Andy Gorvin, who added 67 before Coad struck in the third over after tea, trapping Harris lbw before bowling debutant Ben Morris three balls later to end the innings.

After the old firm of Coad and Fisher had done their bit, the slightly newer old firm, so to speak, of Lyth and Fin Bean set about building on the lead of 122.

They played fluently and positively in the late afternoon sunshine as the trees in the distance swayed behind them, driving, tucking and working the ball neatly on both sides of the wicket, Lyth striking 55 before Harris pinned him in the penultimate over and Bean finishing with 53.