Ben Coad claimed his 200th first-class wicket and was one of a quartet of key contributors as Yorkshire battled back impressively on day two of the LV= Insurance County Championship clash with Essex at Headingley.
New ball partner Jordan Thompson struck four times, Fin Bean closed in on a maiden half-century and George Hill impressed with ball and bat.
Essex’s 225 all out reply to Yorkshire’s first-innings 134 was far from straightforward. They were 105-6 in the early stages of the afternoon, but contrasting innings of 61 from Dan Lawrence and 46 from Shane Snater were key in getting them ahead.
Thompson finished with 4-60 from 14 overs, while Hill added three wickets, Coad two and Steve Patterson one.
In the final 28 overs of the day, Yorkshire’s second innings then advanced to an encouraging 87-2 from 27.4 overs. Opener Bean will begin day two on 41, though he will not have Hill for company after he fell in the final over for 33 having earlier took three wickets. Yorkshire trail by only four runs.
Essex’s first innings, which saw six wickets fall to successful lbw appeals, started at the beginning of play following a washed out evening session yesterday.
While batting conditions were far from easy under the Headingley sunshine, it didn’t seem as challenging a task as yesterday.
Yorkshire struck three times before lunch, where Essex reached at 79-3, and then three times in the early stages of the afternoon as they put the game back in the balance at 105-6.
Thompson claimed the first two wickets, started by uprooting Nick Browne’s off-stump with his first ball of the day – the seventh in all.
That was the only one of the first six wickets which wasn’t lbw.
One of those was Patterson getting Sir Alastair Cook trapped in front for 23 with one that skidded through. It was the seventh time in the last seven Championship games these two have featured that Patterson had dismissed the ex-England captain.
The game was then brought back into the balance inside the opening eight overs of the afternoon.
Thompson returned immediately at the start of the afternoon and struck in his first over for the second session running as Matt Critchley was lbw.
And when Feroze Khushi – Coad’s 200th wicket – and Adam Rossington were trapped lbw with deliveries which kept low in the space of six overs, Essex were six down in the 41st over and still 29 runs behind.
Coad removed both Khushi and Rossington, who had scored a record 15-ball fifty for London Spirit at Headingley in the Hundred last month.
Today, however, the aggression came from his replacement at the crease, Snater as he played arguably the key innings in getting Essex on the front foot again.
It was nowhere near the speed at which Rossington had scored against the Northern Superchargers, but it was just as influential on the game.
As Lawrence batted with caution, Snater chanced his arm and hit strongly down the ground off front foot and back.
The Dutch seamer crashed six fours in 48 balls and pulled a six off Thompson that took the Chelmsford side into the lead at 135-6.
Having arrived at the crease with Lawrence on 25, he went beyond his batting colleague in the mid-forties just before pulling Hill to mid-wicket, where sub-fielder Ben Mike took the catch to leave the visitors at 180-7.
Lawrence reached his fifty off 118 balls not too long afterwards, only to edge Hill behind in the early stages of the evening – 209-8 in the 68th over, a lead of 75.
Seamer Ben Allison pulled a big six in 23, but Yorkshire were able to prevent the lead from stretching into three figures as Thompson trapped him lbw and Hill had Sam Cook caught behind.
Adam Lyth fell caught behind off Cook in the early stages of Yorkshire’s second innings – 25-1 in the eighth over – but Bean was punishing on the square drive and cut.
He hit six boundaries in his first 25 runs, the lion’s share coming off Jamie Porter from the Howard Stand End, where Thompson had kick-started Yorkshire’s encouraging day with Browne’s wicket.
Unfortunately, Porter was to taste success before close when he had Hill caught at first slip.
