Yorkshire are still basking in glorious start

One spectator quipped yesterday that the only thing Yorkshire's supporters have got to moan about is that there is nothing to moan about, such has been the stunning form of Andrew Gale's team.

A third victory in five Championship matches would really get the members purring and raise expectations of a title challenge, although there have been enough false dawns in recent years to suggest optimism must be tempered with caution.

Yorkshire won three of their opening four games in 2007 only to trail away like the seagull cries above North Marine Road, finishing one place above the relegation zone after winning only one of their subsequent 12 matches.

If there is one thing certain about Yorkshire cricket it is that nothing is certain, and it will be some time before a definitive judgment can be made of a developing side.

On the ground where Yorkshire clinched their last Championship in 2001, however, Gale's men maintained their excellent start as they made 313-3 against Essex after winning the toss.

Gale helped himself to an unbeaten 89, attacking with a swagger that furthered the impression he is one of the country's most improved batsmen, while Anthony McGrath held the show together with a magnificent, undefeated 112, his 31st first-class hundred and his second in successive Championship games.

The pair added 163 in 53 overs on a pitch that offered enough to the bowlers to keep them interested, although Essex were workmanlike rather than inspired.

Earlier in the day, Adam Lyth got the ball rolling with a breezy 47 and Jacques Rudolph contributed a polished 45, the South African passing 500 Championship runs during the course of his innings.

It was McGrath and Gale, however, who took the plaudits as they established a platform the likes of Tino Best and Adil Rashid will hope to exploit later in the game.

While McGrath was largely content to drop anchor, grafting just over three hours for his first fifty and reaching his century from 244 deliveries, Gale sped to a 47-ball fifty that included a six over long-on into the pavilion off the left-arm spinner Tim Phillips that scattered spectators as surely as gunfire scatters birds.

McGrath enjoyed his moments of fortune – he was dropped on 33 by Alastair Cook at first slip off the New Zealand pace bowler Chris Martin and then on 106 by John Maunders off David Masters – but there was nothing fortuitous about the trademark pulls and drives that scorched across the well-manicured turf.

With last season's anxieties firmly behind him, McGrath looks to be back to something like his best and still has plenty to offer at the age of 34.

Never in 136 years of first-class cricket at North Marine Road has a fixture been played here earlier in the year, but yesterday's weather had echoes of summer.

The majority of the action was conducted in glorious sunshine beneath a flawless blue sky and only a brisk northerly wind took the edge off the temperature and deterred the removal of head gear and coats.

The ground – melodramatically described by one national newspaper last year as being in "terminal decline" – looked a picture of health and remains very much the jewel in Yorkshire's crown.

Scarborough chairman Bill Mustoe and his staff deserve huge credit for making a number of aesthetic improvements during the close season, including extensive re-painting and sprucing-up of the facilities, as do those sponsors and members of the local community who rallied to make those improvements a reality.

One man who always loves his visits to Scarborough is Lyth, who plays his club cricket here and continues to go from strength to strength.

After reaching fifty in each of the previous four Championship games, the 22-year-old looked in exceptionally good touch as he got the innings off to a sizzling start.

Undaunted by the loss of Joe Sayers to the last ball of the sixth over, caught at first slip by Cook off Martin, Lyth hit 35 of the first 40 runs to raise the possibility he might accomplish the rare feat of a hundred before lunch.

But Ryan ten Doeschate bowled him with the total on 72, the Dutch all-rounder later displaying good agility to claim Rudolph off his own bowling to a ball that swung back into the left-hander.