Yorkshire v Nottinghamshire: Pyrah and Sidebottom combine as Yorkshire subdue champions

IF this had been a boxing match, it might have been stopped already.

Yorkshire would have been declared the winners with Nottinghamshire left to lick their wounds.

After routing the champions for 143, Yorkshire closed day one on 213-5.

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It was a clinical display by Andrew Gale and his men, who are well-placed to beat opponents left punch-drunk by a brutal assault.

Victory might already be assured if Yorkshire had not lost 4-38 just after tea.

They were 106-1 when Luke Fletcher directed a mini-collapse, taking three wickets to help reduce them to 144-5.

But an unbeaten 47 from Gale and an undefeated 39 from Adil Rashid averted the type of disintegration Nottinghamshire delivered.

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Their composed stand of 69 has left the visitors a mountain to climb and Yorkshire with increasingly hopeful designs on their pennant.

One of the few things that went wrong for Yorkshire yesterday was that they lost the toss.

But even that proved a blessing.

Beneath cloudless skies, Nottinghamshire were dispatched in 35.4 overs as Rich Pyrah took a career-best 5-58 and Ryan Sidebottom 4-30 against the county he left during the winter.

Amid the mayhem, Alex Hales scored a superb 85 – an innings as incongruous as a ghetto blaster in a monastery.

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Although overhead conditions were good for batting, there was swing on offer and Sidebottom, in particular, exploited it well.

Operating from the Kirkstall Lane end, he shaped the ball beautifully into the right-hander in a high-class display.

But it was a man at the other end of the career spectrum who set the ball rolling.

Oliver Hannon-Dalby, a 21-year-old ever-present in the Championship last summer but omitted from the first two games this year, struck with the last ball of the fourth over when he knocked back Mark Wagh’s leg-stump.

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Preferred to Steve Patterson and Moin Ashraf, with spinner David Wainwright also returning, Hannon-Dalby extracted what life there was from a pale-looking surface.

When Sidebottom had Paul Franks brilliantly held by a diving Anthony McGrath at second slip and then pinned Samit Patel lbw first ball, Nottinghamshire had lost three wickets in six balls to crash to 7-3.

After Hannon-Dalby was relieved after four overs, Pyrah struck with his first ball from the Rugby Stand end when he had danger man Adam Voges smartly snared at first slip by Adam Lyth.

One sensed a wicket could fall any moment, and it was Championship cricket of compelling quality.

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Sidebottom was in predictable form and picked up his third wicket when he had Ali Brown lbw to leave Nottinghamshire 43-5.

When Chris Read was caught behind trying to pull a delivery from Pyrah, Nottinghamshire were 56-6 and in some distress.

Hales and Steven Mullaney hoisted them to 100-6 at lunch, Hales alleviating the pressure with a number of nicely-timed off-side boundaries.

After letting Durham off the hook in their last game after reducing them to 134-6 in their first innings (they rallied to 327), Yorkshire were not so benevolent this time.

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Mullaney perished two balls after the break, caught behind fending at Pyrah, and the innings fell apart as surely as a flawed argument.

Andre Adams slogged two leg-side boundaries off Pyrah before being bowled attempting a third, Sidebottom having Fletcher brilliantly caught by the diving Lyth in the gully on a day Yorkshire’s fielding sparkled like diamond.

Pyrah beat Sidebottom in the race to five wickets by having Hales caught at deep square-leg, Sidebottom appearing as delighted at his team-mate’s maiden five-wicket haul as Pyrah himself.

Practically the only consolation for Nottinghamshire was that their first-innings score exceeded the 59 they made against Yorkshire at Trent Bridge last September, albeit in inferior batting conditions.

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Yorkshire lost Joe Root for a golden duck in the second over of their reply, caught behind off Charlie Shreck, before Lyth and McGrath assumed centre stage.

Both drove powerfully and with positive intent as they rattled along at four an over, making a mockery of what had gone before.

Nottinghamshire did not bowl nearly as well as Yorkshire but belatedly got their act together during the evening session.

McGrath departed 10 balls after tea when Adams had him lbw one short of a half-century, before Fletcher delivered his mini-burst.

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First he removed Lyth for 64, caught by one of two deep backward-square legs set purposefully for the hook.

Fletcher then bowled Jonny Bairstow with a delivery that kept low before having Gerard Brophy caught in the gully.

Nottinghamshire, at that stage, were back in the hunt, but Gale was in one of his over-my-dead-body moods and Rashid was similarly obdurate as they quickly stamped on the visitors’ momentum.

With plenty of batting to come, Yorkshire will be eyeing a sizeable lead and a comfortable victory.