- Commissioner’s statement on Ventura, Marte
- Ronnie O’Sullivan: Masters champion ‘felt so vulnerable’ in final
- Arron Fletcher Wins 2017 WSOP International Circuit Marrakech Main Event ($140,224)
- Smith challenges Warner to go big in India
- Moncada No. 1 on MLB Pipeline’s Top 10 2B Prospects list
- Braves land 2 on MLB Pipeline’s Top 10 2B Prospects list
- Kingery makes MLB Pipeline’s Top 10 2B Prospects list
- New Zealand wrap up 2-0 after Bangladesh implosion
- Mathews, Pradeep, Gunathilaka to return to Sri Lanka
- Elliott hopes for rain for Poli
Yorkshire take charge despite Livingstone’s grit
- Updated: May 30, 2016
Yorkshire 308 (Wagner 4-75) and 77 for 3 lead Lancashire 196 (Livingstone 60*) by 189 runsScorecard
For all that Steven Croft’s bowlers took three important wickets on the second evening of this game, we may be in Gary Lineker territory if Lancashire win the 256th Roses match. Lineker famously promised to present Match of the Day clad only in his underpants if Leicester City won the Premier League and one or two visiting zealots may be tempted into similar sartorial rashness in the hope that their batsmen can chase down whatever total they require in the fourth innings at Headingley.
The odds against Lancashire winning do not encourage such pledges. After a day in which 14 wickets fell on a pitch offering inconsistent bounce, Yorkshire have a lead of 189 and Andrew Gale’s side bat very deep indeed. It may be that Lancashire will need to score the biggest total of the game in order to achieve a win that would extend their lead over Yorkshire to 32 points. A match’s last innings rarely achieves such heights and the wise money is probably on these rivals being left level on points, with only Lancashire’s three wins deciding the order in the Division One table.
And if Lancashire do lose this game, they will probably conclude that their fate was decided by a 26-over spell either side of lunch on this second day. In that period they declined from 46 for no wicket to 92 for 7 before their last three wickets added a further 104 runs, with Liam Livingstone confirming his reputation as one of the doughtiest finds of the season by making an unbeaten 60 off 83 balls.
Yorkshire’s seam bowlers hunted as a magnificent pack to destroy their opponents’ best batsmen yet the truth that may niggle Lancastrians is that for the best part of an hour their openers, Tom Smith and Haseeb Hameed, had played this high-quality attack with watchful ease. Smith had hit four boundaries, the best of them a gloriously free-flowing straight drive off Tim Bresnan in just the third over of the innings, which seemed as much a …
continue reading in source www.espncricinfo.com
