Yorkshire CCC takes the early upper hand against Sussex in tempestuous conditions
When steady rain fell in the morning session, the groundstaff struggled to maintain control of the covered sheeting.
As the sheets blew around in the violent gale, those staff resembled dog owners trying to restrain particularly volatile breeds, the sort that would eat you as soon as look at you.
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Hide AdIt was a day for hanging on to your hats, in other words, as well as to your wallets, hairpieces and copies of The Yorkshire Post, a day when Sussex - sent into bat beneath grumpy-looking skies - reached 187-9 in 72 overs.


That represented a middling effort by the Second Division leaders, for whom left-handers Tom Alsop and Daniel Hughes contributed the only scores of note against some consistently challenging Yorkshire bowling.
Alsop will resume on 84 from 184 balls with 14 fours, having batted for four-and-a-half hours, while Hughes contributed 53 from 87 deliveries with nine fours.
It was tough cricket in the most watchable sense, and Yorkshire were more than up for it, sticking to their task to take the upper hand.
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Hide AdThe crowd was on the small side, not helped by the weather, and well wrapped when the players first emerged, albeit briefly.


Only four overs were possible before rain forced an early lunch at 12.30, barely enough time for the body to have digested a full English breakfast.
With Jonny Bairstow back - and back behind the stumps - there was a big-match feel to the occasion, a sense that the match should rightly have been a First Division clash.
Ben Coad certainly belongs in that league, and Yorkshire’s talisman struck six balls in, trapping Tom Haines leg-before with one that seemed to nip back from the Trafalgar Square end.
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Hide AdAlso back was Jordan Thompson, after three games in five weeks at The Hundred with Trent Rockets – a name that sounds like a particularly bad American actor.


Thompson didn’t have to wait long for his first wicket back in a Yorkshire shirt, striking in his fourth over when Tom Clark drove a wide-ish delivery to Will Luxton at point.
At 14-2 in the eighth, Sussex were in a spot of Barney Rubble - not helped by the fact there has been no Championship cricket for so long, disturbing players’ rhythm.
But Hughes, the Australian, dug in with Alsop, who rode his luck occasionally in batting conditions that were never straightforward, the ball nipping about and the pitch offering its usual threat of challenging bounce.
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Hide AdAlsop’s most fortuitous moment came at 58-2 in the 26th over, when he was the beneficiary of a cricketing rarity - a dropped slip catch by Fin Bean. The opportunity off Matty Revis flew at head height to third slip but Bean was unable to cling on with Alsop on nine.
There was no such luck for Hughes four overs later when Jonny Tattersall, leading the side in the absence of Shan Masood, on Pakistan duty, held on at the second attempt at cover off the fourth delivery of Coad’s second spell from the Peasholm Park end.
It was a loose shot, in fairness, as betrayed by the batsman’s demeanour as he trudged off the field, the converse of cheerful. Moments later, Tattersall almost ran out Alsop when not in the frame before the fourth wicket fell in the 36th over, Thompson trapping James Coles leg-before.
At tea, Sussex had crawled to 99-4 from 41 overs, following one-and-a-bit sessions of absorbing entertainment, the game feeling even at that point, or perhaps just in Yorkshire’s favour.
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Hide AdThey took a firm grip in the evening session, once spectators had enjoyed their traditional tea-time stroll across the outfield, seagulls circling, scavenging for scraps.
On a day when 24 overs were lost to the elements, though, the visitors could not have been happy with the loss of several soft wickets – not least when John Simpson pulled George Hill to Revis at mid-wicket before the same pair combined in reverse as Fynn Hudson-Prentice flashed to first slip.
That left Sussex 134-6, and after lifting themselves up to 168 they collapsed further to lose three wickets for four runs, two of them to Revis, who had Jack Carson edging to Bean at third slip and Jaydev Unadkat held at fourth slip by Tattersall. In between, spinner Dan Moriarty had Ollie Robinson smartly caught by solitary slip Hill as Sussex stumbled to 172-9.
Alsop, though, would not be moved and he played some lovely strokes through the offside especially. He reached his fifty from 142 balls with his eighth boundary, a pulled four off Thompson, who at various stages seemed affected by cramp.
After so little cricket in those five weeks away, was it any wonder.
Thompson bowled 35 balls for Trent Rockets and on this day sent down 102.
Enough said.
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