Yorkshire v Kent - Day 1: Dom Bess says match is evenly poised despite Yorkshire’s failure to capitalise on Haris Rauf’s early wickets

One down: Yorkshire’s Dom Bess celebrates his dismissal of Kent’s Jordan Cox, lbw for 68. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com

DOM BESS delivered a candid assessment of Yorkshire’s performance on the first day of cricket at Headingley this season.

The off-spinner said that “it wasn’t a good day and it wasn’t a bad day”, describing it as “sort of in between” after Kent scored 270-6 after being sent into bat.

Yorkshire started well as Pakistan fast bowler Haris Rauf reduced them to 20-3 before a hundred from Daniel Bell-Drummond and fifties from Jordan Cox and Ollie Robinson gave proceedings an honours-even feel.

“Haris bowled really well to start with but then, to be honest, our standards weren’t as good,” said Bess.

Excellent spell: Yorkshire paceman Haris Rauf reduced Kent to 20-3 early on. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com

“When you get three wickets early on, three in half an hour, you’re probably feeling quite greedy and looking at being batting by tea-time perhaps.

“But we leaked quite a lot after that and it was one of those days.

“At the same time, you look at it, 270-6, 80 overs in, and I think it’s quite even.”

Bess, 24, has started the season impressively and given Yorkshire captain Steve Patterson control.

The pitches have done nothing to aid wicket-taking for spin bowlers so far, so he is concentrating on doing the next best thing - keeping down the runs.

Bess took 1-50 from 17 overs yesterday after going for less than two runs an over in both innings of last week’s fixture at Northants.

“Early season, my responsibility is to hold up an end and to do the donkey work sometimes,” he said.

“It’s not always exciting, you’re not always taking loads of wickets, but there’s a real responsibility and you have to do the job.

“My challenge is to try to bowl consistently and in challenging areas and to go for as little as I can for as long as I can.

“If I’m not taking wickets, and the pitch isn’t offering, then I don’t want to be giving away runs.”

Turning his attention to day two, Bess added: “We could go bang, bang in the morning and get them out for under 300 with the new ball.

“Then, if we bat really well on a really good surface - day two is usually the best day to bat - then hopefully we can set up a big score.

“It’s a really good wicket. It’s the first game here, and it’s been prepared for three weeks, so it’s a really hard wicket as well.”