Yorkshire CCC star Adam Lyth lights up one of cricket’s less salubrious venues

At least it was a fair day for Yorkshire in a season of several disappointing ones. The omens did not look good when they lost the toss and were invited to take first use of a pitch so verdant that it was the groundskeeping equivalent of the Incredible Hulk smothered in green gunk. But they knuckled down to reach 312-7 in 96 overs, Adam Lyth leading the way with 109, his third hundred of the season to go with two fifties, an innings that put him over halfway towards another 1,000-run campaign. What a remarkable cricketer this fellow is.

The pitch no doubt explained Yorkshire’s decision to do without a specialist spinner, Dan Moriarty and Dom Bess omitted from the squad that travelled. Will Luxton, the 21-year-old batsman, was brought in for just his second Championship appearance and first for almost two years, while Yorkshire handed a debut to Vishwa Fernando, the 32-year-old Sri Lanka fast bowler, who had signed a three-match deal due to an injury crisis that had left the club without four frontline pace bowlers: Ben Coad, Matty Fisher, Matthew Milnes and Mickey Edwards.

Under mainly cloudy skies but with the occasional sunny interlude, and before perhaps 500 or so spectators, many of them apparently from Yorkshire and appropriately wrapped up, the visitors set about their task at a venue where they have not lost a Championship game since 2005, when spinners Monty Panesar and Jason Brown each took five wickets in both innings, a statistical oddity.

It was mostly pace on view this time, but Northamptonshire failed to maximise conditions early on, although Ben Sanderson, the former Yorkshire bowler, gave little away during an opening burst of 6-4-3-0 from the Wantage Road end behind which the workman toiled and their equipment screeched.

Lyth got going in the way that he so often does, with a handsome cover-driven boundary (Jack White the bowler). It would be interesting to know what proportion of Lyth’s 14,000 first-class runs - a mark that he passed here - have come from that shot; certainly it will be the enduring image that one has of him when he calls it a day (may that be a long time hence).

Lyth reached his latest fifty from 82 balls with six fours, but he lost his opening partner Fin Bean in the over before lunch. It had looked tougher going for the burgeoning Bean, whose near two hours of hard graft for 18 runs ended when he was bowled through the gate by Justin Broad - the quirk of a dismissal involving Broad/Bean not lost on the press corps.

Shan Masood, the Yorkshire No 3, had a life soon after lunch when he was dropped by Emilio Gay at second slip to his left off Luke Procter. As so often happens, Masood, who had seven at the time when the total was 102-1, followed up by striking Procter to the boundary, a delightful whip through mid-wicket in the direction of the practice nets, a hive of activity throughout the day.

Beneath cloudier skies as the afternoon developed, with the floodlights summoned to beam down brightness, Masood should have been out twice in the game’s first over of spin, the 58th of the innings, bowled by Rob Keogh. First, the off-spinner looked for all the world to have trapped him leg-before pushing forward, then Masood was the beneficiary of a missed stumping when he danced down the track. His score on both occasions was 42.

Lyth was not so lucky when, three overs later, and after reaching his hundred from 193 balls, he patted back a return catch to Procter, a somewhat soft dismissal as his reaction suggested. Lyth, in fact, dragged himself off the field so slowly that he might have become the first batsman in history to be “timed in”. At least appreciative applause attended each doleful step.

Masood brought up his 50 just after tea and seemed to be growing in stature after those earlier wobbles, but then he threw his bat at one from Siddarth Kaul, the India pace bowler, and was caught at slip for 60, triggering a tumble from 229-2.

George Hill was lbw aiming through mid-wicket, James Wharton bowled off his front thigh trying to pull, and Luxton and Jonny Tattersall caught at second slip.

It took the gloss of Yorkshire’s day right at the end, but they still have a useful total on the board with power to add.