Yorkshire's Joe Root and Harry Brook hit hundreds before Derbyshire fight back

Weather forecasts, of course, are notoriously unreliable; so much so, the two easiest jobs in the world are surely 1) forecasting the weather and 2) writing horoscopes.

In both cases, the predictions can be entirely wrong and yet people will always check them - and be ready to believe them all over again - the following day; the term “money for old rope” springs to mind

The only certainties in cricket, of course, are in the scorebook, and that showed centuries on Saturday for Yorkshire’s Joe Root and Harry Brook.

Nothing too surprising about that, you might say, against a Second Division side as limited as Derbyshire, and yet the runs still had to be made - and made they were with customary style, the fourth-wicket pair sharing 201 inside 40 overs.

Brook, who had 44 out of the first day total of 276-3, went on to an unbeaten 126 from 135 balls with 17 fours and two sixes.

Root, who had 65 overnight, advanced to 119 before missing a delivery from Zak Chappell 20 minutes before lunch, the former Test captain facing 190 balls and striking nine fours and a six.

Derbyshire were straight up against it in reply, slumping to 23-3 in the face of fine bowling from Matty Fisher and Ben Coad.

Fisher got the ball rolling by having Harry Came leg-before and David Lloyd caught at third slip by Fin Bean, who then clung on to a sharp chance in the same position off Coad to remove Luis Reece.

At that stage, the more optimistic Yorkshire fan might even have wondered if their side could take the threat of rain out of the equation altogether.

Matters are rarely so straightforward, of course, and Yorkshire encountered stubborn resistance in Derbyshire’s own fourth-wicket pair of Wayne Madsen and Brooke Guest, who reached 88 and 74 respectively to raise their team’s hopes of forcing a draw.

Madsen, who badly damaged his hand on day one dropping a slip catch, one of three that Derbyshire grassed in the opening hour of the match, showed no sign of ill effects as he played with typical panache.

The 40-year-old remains a high-class operator - not for Madsen the old adage that life begins at 40, more that his old life continues as normal with no suggestion of any drop-off.

Guest, a comparative spring chicken at 26, made his highest score against Yorkshire in 14 attempts, the pair complementing each other before a crowd of 940.

The pair added an unbroken 167 in 51.3 overs, an excellent effort under the circumstances.