Shan Masood is refusing to give up hope of forcing a victory from the final day of Yorkshire’s LV= Insurance County Championship match with Gloucestershire at Headingley.
Gloucestershire, replying to a first-innings 550-9 declared, advanced from 232-5 overnight to 421-8 in a day which only saw 38 overs bowled due to rain and bad light.
Yorkshire have a lead of 129 runs heading into day four.
The Price brothers, Ollie and Tom, cost Yorkshire dear. They shared a quick-fire 162 stand in only 33 overs for the seventh wicket either side of tea.
Tom made 59 and Ollie will resume on 97 tomorrow bidding for his maiden first-team century.
Captain Masood said: “Getting a significant lead because of the time we’ve lost, it was going to be crucial to dictate the game. Now we don’t have a variety of options.
“We had a nice little fightback in the end, and that gives us a glimmer of hope, and we’ll come back in and try hard tomorrow.
“Cricket’s a funny game. You can never take the pedal off the gas. You have to keep being optimistic. It can take one opening to do something. Let’s see how long we take to get these two wickets, and then we can decide what we want to do. If we get the two wickets cheaply, maybe we can have a crack.”
On today’s play, the Pakistan international said: “Hammond played beautifully last night, and he was the crucial wicket. That gave us a little window.
“We can say it became difficult when we had to bowl spin from both ends. That’s when we lost a bit of momentum.
“The light didn’t allow us to do anything else, and we took the positive option by staying out there.
“It’s a reoccurring theme when we do get in good positions. Another wicket could have opened a gap, but it didn’t happen. There was a 150 partnership in almost no time, which set us back.
“The margins are very fine on this pitch considering a short boundary as well. But if you want to be that top team, we have to make sure we’re controlling the rate even if batters are set.”
If Masood wasn’t delighted by his side’s bowling display, he was chuffed to bits with the first-innings centuries scored by youngsters Fin Bean, George Hill and Matthew Revis.
They ensured a Yorkshire record. They are the first three all non-capped centurions in the same Championship innings for the club.
“Whenever you don’t get runs, you want to see your mates do well,” added Masood. “And for the side we’ve put out, the trust we have in our younger batters, Yorkshire’s had serious, serious players, and I see these lads as being those men in the future.
“But I did joke to them, ‘Don’t they like double hundreds’.
“At the pace they were batting, that’s the most incredible thing for me. Whether it was Bean, Hill or Revis, I liked the intensity they showed, the pressure they put on bowlers and the rate they scored at.”
