Jacques begins in style.

posted by John Winn Much encouraged by Yorkshire Cricket's tweets I drove to Headingley on Friday morning and took my seat in plenty of time to see Root and Sayers open the batting against Essex. Passing through the long room the buzz was about Yorkshire's decision to bat, for in the seven other championship games in progress the team winning the toss had elected to field in six cases. The only exceptions to this were Glamorgan,and it didn't get them very far. When Root was dismissed by Masters in the first over and replaced by the newly arrived Phil Jacques it was difficult not to fear the worst. 'Forget promotion' was the advice from one sage. Jacques, however, was impressive from the start. Whatever his preparation has been for batting in a cold English spring Yorkshire should take detailed notes and replicate it for all batsmen in 2013. With Sayers happy to take a supporting role scampering quick singles and looking solid the partnership progressed fluently until the last ball before lunch, when with the partnership worth 96, Sayers was out to the lively Mills. For an hour after lunch all was well, runs came at four an over and the sun shone, Jacques and Gale tucked in to some wayward bowling and Yorkshire reached 184 for two. When tea was taken at 4:20 they were all out for 246 and early season gloom had returned. Leaving aside Ballance, the last six batsmen made just fourteen between them and none could take pride in their efforts. If one was to look for an excuse for such a collapse then it might lie in the loss of the first day's play and the need to press for a result inside three days but only one batting point? Not good enough. I left at this point but followed the rest of the day's events closely and was delighted to see Sidebottom and Patterson (why didn't he play against Kent?)make immediate inroads into the Essex batting. The Bopara/Foster partnership, worth 30 overnight, is critical and if it can be broken early this morning then Yorkshire might be batting by lunch.Essex trail by 172 and the tail beckons. Early reports from Headingley are that it is fine and the forecast looks similar to yesterday when both in the sky and on the field things turned out better than expected. As I mentioned in yesterday's posting I had mapped out visits to a number of grounds in The Wetherby League, but it looks likely that the league cricket programme may get off to at best a patchy start. All games in at least three leagues, Bradford, Yorkshire and Central Yorkshire have been postponed and will be played in September and there are sure to be many other cancellations so I will play safe and head for HQ.