Yorkshire 276-3 (Lyth 97, Root 65*, Brook 44*, Masood 40)
v Derbyshire
David Lloyd continues to do the first thing that a captain should and win the toss. Nor can you fault the decisions to insert the opposition on pitches tinged with green and offering more than a little assistance to the bowlers.
Yet time and again we blow it. Chances were again dropped today, three before lunch, one after it and we didn't bowl especially well. I thought there was too much wide stuff, while the length was a wrong one for this ground.
It always swings at Headingley, yet we were bowling what John Arlott used to call a 'grudging length'. Twenty minutes before he was introduced to the attack, a sage former professional messaged me and called for Luis Reece to be bowling - and he got a wicket, second ball.
Wayne Madsen took a blow on a finger in putting one down and it didn't look good. I was also puzzled why Jack Morley was in the twelve, yet Samit Patel came on as twelfth man in Madsen's gear. Then Ben Aitchison appeared and it all looked like the Sunday XI at the Dog and Duck
David Lloyd had his left hand strapped, so wasn't in the slips, but Harry Came went in there with Luis Reece at third, not a common position for him. Meanwhile, Pat Brown, ostensibly the third seamer, didn't get a bowl until after lunch, when four others and the spinner had all turned their arms over. Rightly or wrongly, it didn't suggest a great deal of confidence in him and cannot have done a great deal for the player.
Yorkshire batted quite serenely and easily after that first hour, with all bar Bean looking at ease in the conditions. Lyth will be annoyed at missing out on his century, while Masood played beautifully, if never suggesting permanence.
Later in the day, before bad light and heavy rain brought a premature close, Joe Root and Harry Brook batted with the class that they have and it is astonishing that two of the country's finest players are in division two. With an incredible feeling of deja vu, Yorkshire look set for around five hundred before tea tomorrow, when we will doubtless face a tricky session against Coad and Fisher (who was fit) who will certainly bowl the right lines and length for this ground.
We might be batting without Madsen too, as I am not expecting good news about the county talisman.
It never rains but it pours.
It might need to do, if we are to escape this game with our 'unbeaten' record intact. Unbeaten, but largely outclassed, so far this year. I can handle Root and Brook doing that, but these catches are SO costly. I know they work very hard at this, but until they start holding on in matches, it ain't worth a dime.
I hope that one day soon we can get ahead of the game.
But if doesn't look like being in this one.