Plan B not needed

Monday 18th of April

Posted by John Winn

On a day when even the most cautious might have considered leaving off their heavy woollens, The Heavy Woollen Cup first round ties provided an attractive alternative to Headingley where Yorkshire started the day needing an improbable 402 runs to beat Durham, having lost the key wickets of Lyth and McGrath the previous evening.I decided to go to Headingley in the knowledge that if the day's play should be short lived just 8 miles away at Morley there was a cup game being played.
The early loss of Root and Gale and a lunchtime score of 176 for 6 suggested a mid afternoon finish, but the post lunch session allowed four Yorkshire men to keep the decent crowd enthralled until tea and beyond. Indeed there was a point where one optimistic member began to talk of a Yorkshire victory!
The four heroes were Bairstow, Pyrah, Sidebottom and Ashraf. Pyrah came in before lunch with the score on 158 for 6 and was last out at quarter past five and the total on 343. In resisting for more than sixty overs Dewsbury born Pyrah added 67 with Bairstow (81) and more improbably 98 with Sidebottom (31). The new ball was taken by Durham at the earliest opportunity but this partnership went relatively untroubled through to tea and it was clear from their body language that the fielding side could foresee a repetition of events at The Rose Bowl last Monday when they were able to take only five Hampshire wickets on the last day.
At 16;35 Plunkett broke through, having Sidebottom caught by Richardson and trapping Patterson lbw first ball. Enter perhaps the unlikeliest of heroes, twenty year old Moin Asraf with a highest score in the county championship of 10. He survived a strong appeal for lbw first ball, perhaps by virtue of some bat on ball and then stayed with Pyrah until quarter past five when, despite a good step forward, Pyrah was adjudged lbw to Borthwick, the pick of the Durham bowlers.Pyrah's score of 87 was his highest in the championship, beating his 78 at New Road in 2005.

The bald statistic of defeat by 146 runs suggests a comfortable day for Durham, but far from it and those who stayed to the end went home disappointed but satisfied that Yorkshire had achieved the highest total of the match on a day when it might have been easy to capitulate and deny us all an excellent day's cricket.