Yorkshire strengthened their grip on the County Championship Division 1 title at Nottingham on day 2 yesterday. Their approach was clearly aimed at only batting once and hence to effectively ensure they couldn't lose the game to Notts, hence forcing them to force the pace when they batted if they were to gain the win required to close the gap at the top of the title. In fact, far from accelerating their run rate to put Notts in earlier, they seemed to slow down during the afternoon and consequently the rate slipped to only around 3 runs an over.
Social media's reaction to their obdurate approach was divided between good professionalism to protect their title lead by some and general tedium by others who expected them to move the game on.
Yorkshire worried not as they pushed on steadily past a total of 500 with Gary Ballance unlucky to fall on 99 on his return to the side after England duty. Adil Rashid contributed a handy knock before falling on "unlucky" 42, the same score as Jack Leaning had scored earlier in the day. Tim Bresnan provided a handy reminder to the England selectors that he can still play an all rounder role in falling just five runs short of a deserved century, including some lusty blows when the game was becoming a little soporific.
The declaration eventually came at 532-9 leaving Notts a mountain to climb to get back into the match.
For Notts, Gary Keedy continued to take Yorkshire wickets to stem the flow of runs somewhat as he finished with an excellent 5 for 163 of a mammoth 50 overs, but they seemed to be largely employing a damage limitation exercise, not giving too many easy runs away and waiting for the Tykes to give their wickets away.
Harry Gurney will have only bowled so many overs in an innings a handful of times, but the new England one day left arm paceman stuck to his task despite only returning 1 wicket off 34 overs.
Notts in reply started shakily finishing on 58-4 overnight, as three of their top order batsmen, Alex Hales, James Taylor and Samit Patel were all out without scoring.
They are still 474 runs behind going into day 3 and will have to bat much better second time around to save the match, let alone push for a victory.
Warwickshire still remain in the hunt to at least catch Notts as they began to establish a big first innings lead at home against Northants in their match, but they will need Yorkshire to slip up badly in their game if they are to have any chance of taking the title from their grasp.