Adam Lyth capitalises on butter-fingers Derbyshire as Yorkshire seize control

Not that the heat pads did Derbyshire much good.

As spectators shivered in the Headingley stands, wrapped up in coats and cradling flasks, Aneurin Donald, Wayne Madsen and Harry Came each dropped a slip chance in the opening hour, setting the tone for a good Yorkshire day.

It was a day that saw the hosts total 276-3 after being sent into bat, a day that saw Adam Lyth - who benefited from the third of those dropped chances - top score with 97.

By the time that rain arrived around 4pm, depriving a good-sized crowd of no play after tea, Joe Root and Harry Brook had 65 and 44 to their credit respectively, their stand worth 71 from 67 balls.

Root ticked along in understated style, striking six boundaries in 99 balls and never looking like getting out, while Brook cracked seven fours and a six in his 37 deliveries.

With captain Shan Masood chipping in with 40, it meant that Yorkshire’s “big four” all contributed, totalling 246 between them with power to add – a figure in contrast to their combined aggregate of 95 in eight innings in last week’s defeat at Middlesex.

As Derbyshire laboured, Lyth had 22 to his name when he edged an attempted clip through mid-wicket off Anuj Dal to first slip, where Came put down a sharp opportunity moving to his right, the ball disappearing to the Kirkstall Lane end boundary for good measure.

According to a member of the visiting media, Derbyshire dropped three catches in the first half-hour of their previous match against Leicestershire, so three in the first 60 minutes here represented improvement of sorts.

Still, it was not difficult to discern why Derbyshire have not won a County Championship match for 21 months, arguably the worst record since Mr Blobby was released as a single in 1993.

Lyth was spilled twice, in fact, during the course of a 157-ball stay that contained 15 fours, and some handsome strokes on both sides of the wicket. When his score was 80 and the total 175-2, Lyth leg-glanced a ball from Blair Tickner, the New Zealand pace bowler, which wicketkeeper Brooke Guest dropped one-handed, diving to his right.

As such chances go, it was one that a wicketkeeper would expect to grasp, and no one was more relieved than Guest when he then pouched a regulation chance when Lyth edged behind a drive off Zak Chappell.

Moments earlier, when he needed only four runs to reach what would have been a 35th first-class century and a third in the first four games this season, Lyth had been denied a boundary by an athletic piece of fielding.

The left-hander made sweet contact with a cover-drive off Dal towards the old pavilion only for David Lloyd to fling himself to his left (no doubt Lyth will replay that moment over in his mind as much as any of the boundaries he scored).

In batting conditions that were not straightforward, Lyth had punched the first ball of the game to the offside boundary off Chappell.

Fin Bean, his partner, then benefited from two reprieves, on six and 11, when Donald grassed him at second slip off Dal before Madsen spilled him at first slip off Tickner, who let out an anguished cry like a man who had just walked into a newsagent and found out that they had sold their final copy of The Yorkshire Post just a few seconds earlier.

Amid a number of rejected lbw appeals and much hands-on-heads from the Derbyshire fielders, it was an all-action, entertaining start to the contest. That excitement was added to by Masood, who played with great positivity against his former club, carrying the fight to the bowlers.

His innings resembled a passionate fling - great while it lasted but over quickly as he scored all of his runs in boundaries (10 fours) from 25 balls.

Masood fell in unfortunate manner given what had gone before as Derbyshire finally got their mitts around a slip chance, Donald this time taking the ball at second when Luis Reece located the edge.

Earlier, Bean went on to 18 before Dal trapped him in front, a controversial moment given that the left-hander should not have been on strike in the first place. From the final ball of the previous over, Bean had driven Tickner down the ground and Pat Brown, in retrieving beside the boundary, slipped and lightly touched the rope with his foot, meaning that a four should have been awarded.

As it was, Brown seemed unsure what had happened and Bean had to content himself with three runs. That the outcome of the match is unlikely to hinge on the episode, however, given Yorkshire’s already strong position, seems a reasonable bet.

After Lyth and Root added 113, Root and Brook added a touch of England polish.

Brook lofted Reece for six back over his head while there was no finer shot played than Root’s cover-driven four off the same bowler for his first boundary, marked by a lovely flow of the bat and a high leading elbow.