Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com. Head coach Anthony McGrath and general manager of cricket Gavin Hamilton present Matthew Revis and James Wharton with their county caps, repeating the ceremony held in the Hawke Suite on Friday night in front of the members and supporters before playing this morning.
Yorkshire have their backs firmly against the wall chasing 426 to win against Hampshire at Headingley, with centurion Ben Brown, Jake Lehmann and later Kyle Abbott all pressing the visitors’ case for a Rothesay County Championship victory.
Hampshire captain Brown hit a fine 103 not out off 109 balls to underpin a 351-5 declaration, which came in the early stages of the evening. He had shared a fifth-wicket 172 partnership with Australian Lehmann, whose 92 represented his second fifty of the match against his former county.
South African overseas new-ball seamer Abbott – four wickets in the first innings – then struck four more times in his nine overs as Yorkshire closed on 62-5 from 29.
Dutch overseas seam-bowling all-rounder Logan van Beek was Yorkshire’s standout performer with 4-85 from 20 overs and, including a run out, had a hand in all five Hampshire wickets. It was tough on him that he was attacked by Brown and Lehmann after tea.
Wicketkeeper-batter Brown has now scored four first-class centuries against Yorkshire for either Hampshire or Sussex.
Should Yorkshire get there, this would be their highest ever successful first-class run chase. Unfortunately, it looks a long way away, and unbeaten Fin Bean and George Hill have plenty of work to do in the morning.
The hosts had to once again utilise the ECB’s new substitution rule for this competition to bring in Ben Cliff for seam-bowling colleague Jack White at the start of day three.
Unfortunately, White has been struck down with the same sickness bug which is affecting Jhye Richardson and forced him out of the game yesterday.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com. Logan van Beek had a hand in all five Hampshire wickets.
Dutchman van Beek was his replacement, and he typified the home’s side hard-working performance early on before they became increasingly ragged as visitors piled the pressure on during the second half of the afternoon.
Yorkshire were unable to claim the flurry of wickets they needed to really peg Hampshire back during a showery, sometimes bright but always cold Leeds day.
Van Beek struck twice late on day one, removing the openers Joe Weatherley and Nick Gubbins.
Early this morning, he had nightwatchman Sonny Baker superbly caught off a leading edge by a diving captain Dom Bess, who had rushed in towards the silly mid-on region.
That left Hampshire 106-3 in the 33rd over, the seventh of the day.
Only 9.1 overs were bowled this morning because of rain, which did its very best impression of the Hokey Cokey.
At one point, the players had got themselves ready to restart after a short break – George Hill was at the top of his mark – before having to scurry off again.
Hampshire reached lunch at 119-3, a lead of 195.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com. Ben Brown on the attack against Yorkshire today.
Not long afterwards, Tom Prest, who advanced from 31 overnight to 53, was run out backing up via a deflection onto the non-striker’s end stumps from bowler van Beek followed a crisply struck Lehmann drive off a low full toss.
Lehmann and Brown united during the early stages of the afternoon – and, after largely steady progress, they added some real impetus.
Brown took on the lead role in that sense.
When Yorkshire captain Bess introduced himself into the attack, his opposite number Brown deposited the off-spinner over wide long-on for six. At that stage, in mid-afternoon, it was 172-4 with a lead of 247.
Lehmann was 21 when Brown came to the crease, but the latter reached his fifty first, off 67 balls.
Third-man was a particularly productive area for Brown, who regularly flashed boundaries over the slips en-route to another notable score against Yorkshire.
When left-handed Lehmann got to the same milestone an over later – after his first-innings 76 – off 89 balls, Hampshire were 232-4 and 306 inside the final 40 minutes of the afternoon.
Rain forced tea to be taken 10 minutes early, at 267-4, with the partnership now 125.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com. Dom Bess takes the catch from the bowling of Logan Van Beek to dismiss Hampshire’s Sonny Baker this morning.
Play was not delayed for too long, and upon the restart Lehmann and Brown took 20 off the first over from van Beek, the former depositing a six over mid-wicket.
The same bowler removed Lehmann just short of a century when he picked out deep backward square-leg – 314-5, a lead of 388.
But Brown was on the charge.
In all, he hit four sixes, including the last to get him to a 108-ball century before the declaration came one ball later. That was slog-swept over deep backward square-leg off Bess.
But then Abbott got to work.
Adam Lyth was caught second slip in the first over and Sam Whiteman was bowled shouldering arms in the fifth, leaving the score at 4-2.
Bean and James Wharton took the sting out of the situation by sharing 47.
However, seamer Eddie Jack trapped the latter lbw for 21 inside the day’s final 10 overs.
Abbott then uprooted Matthew Revis’s off-stump with a beauty before, two balls later, trapping nightwatchman Cliff lbw – 62-5 in the 27th over.
Bean will begin tomorrow on 29 with Hill there on one.
