Yorkshire make most of home comforts to secure win

COULD Yorkshire be the season's surprise package?

One would not bet against it after a second successive County Championship victory sent Andrew Gale's side top of the table and challenged bookmakers' predictions they will finish bottom of Division One.

Nobody with Yorkshire cricket at heart will need reminding the club won their opening two Championship games of 2007 – and three of their first four – only to fade away like a line of old handwriting.

But a six-wicket victory against Somerset, which followed a four-wicket triumph over Warwickshire, has raised expectations among the club's supporters and disquiet among the nation's odds-makers who rated Gale's men favourites to plunge into Division Two.

For the second game in succession, Yorkshire displayed commendable strength of character to win a match which, in common with the one at Edgbaston, they could easily have lost.

Somerset looked dead and buried going into the final day on 201-6 in their second innings – effectively 54-6 – but rallied splendidly to reach 344 all-out and set Yorkshire a nuisance target of 198 in 56 overs.

The home side were wobbling at 17-2 in the ninth over but Adam Lyth (90) and Gale (64 not out) produced a decisive fourth-wicket partnership of 107 that helped them home with 10.1 overs to spare.

Earlier, Oliver Hannon-Dalby claimed his second successive five-wicket haul to end a brave Somerset rearguard and confirm his status as a 20-year-old pace bowler of the highest potential.

Gale said: "The lads were absolutely fantastic and they gave me everything I could have asked for.

"To have won the first two games is a special feeling and the players can feel extremely proud of their efforts.

"A lot of people were writing us off at the start of the season, saying we're favourites to go down, but we're trying to use that to our advantage.

"We know we go into every game as underdogs but that only serves to drive us on."

Victory represented a significant personal achievement for Gale, whose fine first innings hundred helped transform the balance of the contest and who sparked jubilant celebrations yesterday when he struck the winning runs.

"I think it's important as captain that your performance on the pitch demands the respect of the players," he added.

"To get a hundred in the first innings and then to score the winning runs was very pleasing in that respect.

"I'm obviously delighted with the way things have gone so far but it's important to remember we are a work in progress.

"We are a young side, a developing side, and things won't always go as well as they have done in the last two matches."

Things did not initially go well for Yorkshire yesterday after Somerset resumed in cold, cloudy conditions as more traditional April weather returned with a vengeance.

They had to wait 40 minutes for their first wicket of the day – Damien Wright falling lbw to Hannon-Dalby for 25 – and made only one further breakthrough during the morning session, Zander de Bruyn splendidly caught one-handed at third slip by Tim Bresnan off Hannon-Dalby as the batsman tried to take evasive action.

De Bruyn's fine 83 underpinned a lunchtime total of 314-8 and Yorkshire were greatly frustrated by an entertaining ninth-wicket partnership between Alfonso Thomas and David Stiff, who rode their luck to add 74 in 19 overs. When Jonathan Bairstow dropped a regulation catch behind the stumps off Bresnan when Stiff was 33, some Yorkshire supporters might have wondered whether it was going to be one of those days. But Bairstow made amends by catching Thomas for 44 off the opening delivery of the next over, bowled by Hannon-Dalby.

Hannon-Dalby then wrapped up the innings by having Stiff caught in the slips to finish with 5-68 - identical figures to those he claimed at Edgbaston.

Yorkshire's run-chase began unsteadily as Joe Sayers was caught behind for a duck attempting to cut and Anthony McGrath held at first slip.

But Lyth and Jacques Rudolph eased nerves before Rudolph was seemingly outwitted by a slower one from de Bruyn and caught in the covers with the total on 61.

As indifferent light closed in, raising the prospect that a marvellous match might be ruined at the last, Lyth and Gale showed all their skill to frustrate a Somerset bowling unit which simply did not possess the variety or depth of the Yorkshire attack.

Lyth played some handsome drives and deft deflections before being strangled down the leg-side within touching distance of a deserved century, but Gale and Bairstow ensured there were no further alarms as Yorkshire recorded their first Championship win at Headingley for two years.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Andrew Gale

Yorkshire's captain led from the front with innings of 101 and 64 not out to help his side to their second successive Championship victory.