Plunkett tips balance in fascinating contest

Lancashire 196 and 41 for 1 need a further 308 to beat Yorkshire 308 and 236 (Plunkett 57, Wagner 4-71)Scorecard

Clouds chasing each other across a torn, pavement-grey sky; tree branches jostling each other for room in a skittish wind; the Championship pennant tugging its flagpole in rebellious pride; a cloth sightscreen billowing at the Football Stand End; then floodlights throwing dark shadows.

It was a northern morning of stereotypical conception at Headingley on the third day of this game, a bowlers’ morning too, you might think, although it seemed too cool for those who depended on swing. Spectators wrapped in their loyalties watched the cricket and they did so with a concentration that precluded other activities. For this has all the makings of a classic Roses match, albeit more an exquisite hybrid tea than a sprawling floribunda.

Yorkshire were in charge of the game when the third day began and they remain in control going into the final three sessions. A lead of 189 with seven second-innings wickets in hand at the start of play represented prosperity, and at just past three o’clock, when Jack Brooks was castled by Luke Procter, that affluence had been extended to 348.

Happily for those who revere statistical symmetry, Lancashire now need to make their seventh-highest fourth-innings score to win a first-class game and Yorkshire must concede their seventh-biggest score to lose one. The argument that the rivalry between these teams is so fierce because their approaches to cricket are so similar has been insufficiently investigated. Suddenly it is strengthened by the quiddity of numbers.

The odds, though, are by no means six to five and pick ’em. Lancashire have already lost Tom Smith, who miscued Steve Patterson to Liam Plunkett at short cover when he had …

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