Yorkshire 299 for 8 (Tattersall 70, Ballance 54) v Surrey
Scorecard
Scarborough on a warm Monday afternoon in late June and cricket takes its place in the multi-textured quilt of an English summer. Inside North Marine Road, Jack Leaning and Jonny Tattersall are attempting to rebuild a Yorkshire innings damaged by the loss of five wickets for 139 runs. Surrey's bowlers strive for more breakthroughs on a pitch where 350 might be a good score.
Then Leaning pulls Jade Dernbach to deep square leg where Will Jacks takes a good tumbling catch. Even as they settle into a highlight of their year, Yorkshire supporters are restive. Their side is nearer the bottom of the table than the top. Their side for this match is lacking six players who are answering representative calls. Surrey are without five but that worries the Peasholm Park regulars rather less.
Despite appearances, though, cricket is not the only enthusiasm in Scarborough this week; Yorkshire and Surrey are not the only causes to command allegiance. Even as Tattersall and Tim Bresnan repaired their side's position with a partnership of 106 for the seventh wicket, flags of St George flew from the windows of cars passing the ground just as they already festoon shop fronts. Tattersall reached his maiden first-class fifty with a glance off Dernbach and extended his partnership with Bresnan beyond 100. The mood of the day changed as Surrey struggled for wickets with the new ball.
Bresnan, dropped behind the wicket on 18, thumped the ball uncompromisingly hard but was bowled for 48 when attempting another drive off Rikki Clarke. Two overs before the close Tattersall edged Morne Morkel to Scott Borthwick and left with 70 fine runs against his name. A week earlier, he had resisted gamely in Yorkshire's Royal London Cup semi-final defeat against Hampshire,Yorkshire supporters wearing their team shirts puffed out their chests and stood to applaud. But there are other shirts in Scarborough this week and not only those of a good Surrey contingent. The colours of all nations hang in The Albert and The Scarborough Flyer but internationalism ends at the ceilings. Old songs of triumph boom out and big blokes in white football shirts pass strong opinions.
Just before the start of play spectators sat in front of the tea-room at the Trafalgar Road End and read how young men in Nizhny Novgorod have apparently made a statement by bombing on in the final third. A few moments later Alex Lees bombed out in the second over, caught and bowled by Dernbach for nought, and Yorkshire's fitful progress through the first two sessions had begun. In his customary style Adam Lyth drove pleasantly through the covers but was caught in the gully off Morkel for 42 when driving once too often.
Meanwhile, there was the batting of Cheteshwar Pujara to enjoy and many Yorkshiremen will have enjoyed the restraint he showed against Surrey's seamers. Every leave-alone, especially when played to balls which passed high over the stumps, elicited a quiet purr of approval from spectators who have always reckoned free scoring on the first morning of a match to be vastly overrated. Pujara had batted 70 minutes and faced 42 balls before getting off the mark with a cover-driven boundary off Ryan Patel. He came into lunch unbeaten on 17 after 112 minutes of abstinence.
Yet if Pujara exhibits all the Puritan virtues, he was dismissed by a bowler whose celebrations would make a Restoration dramatist look demure. Amar Virdi is still 19 years old and he evinces the joy of a cricketer who believes the world is his playground. Perhaps, for one summer at least, he is right.
In Virdi's third over Pujara made to force the offspinner off his legs but only gave a bat and pad catch to Jacks at short leg. Two balls later, Harry Brook was leg-before when he went back to a ball which seemed to skid on. Virdi scampered off, he knew not where, with the exuberance of a Colombian inside-right.
Brook's dismissal left Yorkshire on 106 for 4 and their innings in sore need of repair. That was initially provided by Gary Ballance, who seems to be batting more fluently now freed of the cares of captaincy. Several of his eight fours were as pleasant as anything seen all day and he reached his fifty with a pulled six off a Virdi long hop. Eight balls later, though, Ballance was bowled playing no shot to Clarke and spectators became fretful. Tattersall's achievement was to turn their uncertainty to joy, an emotion intensified when Morkel conceded 19 runs off the day's final over. All this, they thought, and Spain v Morocco to come. Another grand day.
