Yorkshire v Middlesex ends in high-scoring draw
Vitality County Championship Division Two, Headingley (day four)
Yorkshire 601-6 dec: Hill 169*, Bairstow 160 & 150-2: Lyth 62
Middlesex 522: Higgins 155, Robson 108; Bess 7-179
Yorkshire (13 pts) drew with Middlesex (11 pts)
Promotion rivals Middlesex and Yorkshire will head into the final three games of the County Championship Division Two season separated by just one point after a high-scoring draw at Headingley.
Middlesex started the final day on 441-5 in reply to Yorkshire’s 601-6 declared. They reached the follow-on target of 452 comfortably before being bowled out for 522, Ryan Higgins with 155 as former England off-spinner Dom Bess finished with 7-179 from a marathon 70.4 overs.
Yorkshire reached 150-2 before bad light stopped play at 16:10 BST, Adam Lyth with 62 and James Wharton 50 not out. Yorkshire took 13 points and Middlesex 11.
Despite conceding 522, with Sam Robson’s 108 supporting the in-form Higgins, Yorkshire bowled tidily led by spinners Bess and Moriarty who each bowled more overs than they ever had previously done in a first-class innings.
New-ball seamer Ben Coad added two wickets during the fourth morning to finish with 3-54.
Bess had Luke Hollman caught at second slip by Jonny Bairstow – one-handed at the third attempt – leaving Middlesex 441-6.
Despite being 11 runs short of the follow-on, there were no alarms during the early stages of a day played out under floodlights.
Higgins reached 150 off 252 balls – of his five Championship centuries this season, four have been above 150.
But he soon saw his off and middle stumps uprooted by Coad, who also bowled Toby Roland-Jones to leave Middlesex 513-8.
Bess wrapped up the innings by getting Tom Helm caught at short-leg and Noah Cornwell brilliantly taken by a diving Jordan Thompson as he ran back from mid-off.
Lyth, needing 105 to follow Higgins to 1,000 Championship runs for the season, reached his fifty in 63 balls but fell short of a century when he drove Helm’s seam to short cover on the verge of tea.
Fin Bean had been trapped lbw by Hollman’s leg-spin for 30, while Wharton reached an aggressive half-century off 55 balls shortly before the players left the field for bad light.
Match report by ECB Reporters' Network.