As if spurred to greater effort by the presence at the crease of that tiny parcel of bloody-minded intransigence named Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Yorkshire’s bowlers stirred themselves to even greater efforts in the Roses match at Headingley today, and their toil was abundantly justified.
Lancashire began the morning carrying a deficit of nine runs but with six second-innings wickets in hand. Steven Croft’s players could therefore harbour realistic hopes of setting their hosts a testing target or at least batting until the weather closed in.
However, from the third over of the session, when Dane Vilas edged Ryan Sidebottom to Adam Lyth at second slip until the moment just after lunch when Alex Lees’ lofted four clinched Yorkshire’s ten-wicket victory, Gary Ballance’s cricketers dominated the third day of this game much as they had controlled the previous two.
No one epitomised the home side’s approach better than Sidebottom and Ben Coad, two seam bowlers at very different stages of their careers but with comparable work-ethics and, in this match at least, similar levels of success.
Three overs after Sidebottom’s initial success, Coad took the vital wicket of Chanderpaul for the second time in the game when he came round the wicket from the Kirkstall Lane End and induced the master of the art of playing inside the ball to give the faintest of edges to Andy Hodd.
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Instead of batting all day, as he had no doubt envisaged, the Guyanese had added only four to his overnight score and Lancashire were still one run in arrears when he departed. Any later resistance, including Jordan Clark’s 37, merely delayed the inevitable outcome, one that had been built as much by Adam Lyth’s century on the second day as by the unremitting excellence of probably the finest seam attack in the country on the third.
Having ground out a 150-run lead yesterday, Yorkshire made the most of it today and when further incisions were needed Tim Bresnan made them by taking three wickets in 16 balls late in the morning. Coad ended the match with figures of eight for 59 while Sidebottom took six for 68. Add in the formidable assistance of Bresnan and Jack Brooks and you have a quartet which permits its opponents no respite.
Lancashire were eventually dismissed for 209, leaving their opponents needing 60 to win, a task they completed in the eighth over after lunch. Indeed, the game ended with Croft bowling his spinners to improve his team’s over-rate while Lyth and Lees cruised serenely to the victory that took their side up to second in the table.
“From start to finish we dominated the game,” said the Yorkshire coach, Andrew Gale. “I said in the dressing room that we strive for perfection and as a bowling unit I thought we were top drawer. If I could show the academy players a video of how to bat at Headingley Adam Lyth’s innings would be the one I would choose. I’ve never seen him work harder for a hundred.”