COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP DIVISION ONE, Old Trafford: Match Drawn. Yorkshire 447 & 215-7 dec, Lancashire 358 & 190-7 Yorkshire 10 pts, Lancashire 8 pts Match scorecard
 Best had only taken two wickets in his three previous Championship games |
Yorkshire moved back to the top of the County Championship table despite having to settle for a Roses Match draw against title rivals Lancashire. Just as Lancashire were frustrated by rain at Headingley, Yorkshire were this time left cursing at Old Trafford. Having declared at 215-7 to set 305 in 68 overs, Tino Best struck three times to have Lancashire in trouble on 42-3. But, after a rain break on 106-4, despite Adil Rashid's three quick wickets, Lancashire held out on 192-7. Best finished with 3-40, while Rashid, who took 5-90 in the first innings, finished with 3-46 in 20.4 overs for an eight-wicket match haul. Both sides moved up in the table - Lancashire into third - mainly because Nottinghamshire and Somerset have not played this week. It was the second time in a month that weather had the final word in the Roses Match, after Lancashire were denied a victory chance by the Leeds rain just a month ago. And, although stand-in Yorkshire skipper Jacques Rudolph set the home side an achievable target, there would have been only one winners of this contest, but for the rain. Lancashire left-arm spinner Simon Kerrigan took three of the four Yorkshire wickets to fall in the morning session to finish with figures of 4-77 as the visitors moved on from their overnight 111-3 before the declaration. Best then made a quick impact, the West Indian removing Stephen Moore, Simon Katich and Paul Horton by the ninth over. Best bowled Moore with the perfect yorker in the opening over, then had Katich caught at third slip and Horton trapped lbw in successive overs. That forced fourth-wicket pair Mark Chilton, until he was trapped lbw by Steven Patterson for 23, and Steven Croft into a rearguard action in order to help keep the gap between the two sides in the Division One table to eight points. Although they only added 49 together, they did bat for 18 valuable overs to take the sting out of Yorkshire's charge before rain intervened to take 10 overs off the day's tally. On the resumption, Rashid then took two wickets in the 40th over to keep his side in the hunt. Rashid had Tom Smith caught behind by Gerard Brophy and Luke Sutton caught at forward short leg by Jonny Bairstow. He also had home captain Glen Chapple caught by Best at mid-on with around half an hour's play left. But Croft recorded his seventh half-century of the campaign, hitting 85 off 174 balls to see his side to safety and become the first Lancashire batsman to pass 500 Championship runs this summer.
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