Yorkshire CCC plugs away in placid conditions as game heads for draw

In the courtroom of the County Championship, as a few hundred or so looked on from the gallery, it was as tough as it gets for those spinners, who were effectively forced to shoulder the load with the seamers more or less surplus to requirements.

At the end of another balmy day, as August went out in a blaze of blue skies and sunshine, Middlesex had advanced from 141-1 to 441-5 in reply to Yorkshire’s 601-6 declared, which amounted to 1,042 runs scored for the loss of 11 wickets over three days, the follow-on figure just 11 runs away.

Quite how all of this was helping England to win Ashes series Down Under was not immediately obvious, the apparent raison d’etre for all this fluting around with the ball and the pitches, but it was hard fare at times for the players and spectators.

Practically the only good thing about it was that play ended promptly at 6pm, a rarity in this day and age and which at least put everyone out of their misery.

Bess sent down 64 overs - more than he had ever bowled in a first-class innings - for 4-168, a terrific effort, while Moriarty returned 0-145 from 52 overs, only two overs shy of his biggest workload, and was unlucky not to get some reward.

Throw in 12 overs from Adam Lyth, who after the first day’s play described this as the flattest Headingley pitch he had seen, and the spinners did well, accounting for 86 of the 101 overs bowled on day three on a pitch that stubbornly refused to deteriorate.

After just seven wickets fell across the first two days, the obvious threat to Middlesex was scoreboard pressure when they resumed 460 behind. Sam Robson had 65 and Max Holden 39, and they had lifted their stand to 121 when the first wicket fell after 50 minutes, Holden, pushing forward, caught behind off Bess for 51, made in 145 balls from as many minutes.

At lunch, Middlesex were 248-3, Robson having gone for 108 from 219 balls with 15 fours, lbw playing back to Bess, at the ground where he scored his solitary Test hundred against Sri Lanka in 2014.

Ben Coad picked up something of a soft wicket after the break, Leus du Plooy hammering a full toss straight to Bess at short cover, who clung on brilliantly one-handed, the only wicket in the session as Middlesex took tea at 349-4.

Bess claimed his fourth scalp some 50 minutes into the evening session, Jack Davies edging to Lyth at slip, having scored 61 from 129 balls with nine fours to end a stand of 128 with Ryan Higgins.

At 391-5, Middlesex were still 61 short of avoiding the follow-on, but Higgins advanced to his fifth hundred of the season from 185 balls.

In the process, he became only the second man to reach 1,000 Championship runs this season after Glamorgan’s Colin Ingram, ending the day on 117 not out with Luke Hollman unbeaten on 21.