Hodd carrier to rescue after Yorkshire crumble

Nottinghamshire 38 for 2 trail Yorkshire 282 (Hodd 96*, Rafiq 74) by 244 runs
Scorecard

Even in this age of cash and context, the Scarborough Festival still takes place but its nature has changed. For evidence of this one had only to glance at the Division One table before this match or observe the admirable Steven Mullaney's reactions as he ran out Adam Lyth and took three vital wickets on the game's opening morning.

Mullaney reckons his team may need three more wins to avoid relegation; meanwhile, near the top of Division One, Yorkshire are 26 points behind Middlesex and this is their game in hand.

So a great deal may depend on the result of this seemingly festal cricket match. There could therefore have been few better times for Andy Hodd to make 96 not out, his best score for Yorkshire, or for Azeem Rafiq to help him add 132 for the seventh wicket. Their partnership revived a side whose top-order batting remains very flaky and it snuffed out any Nottinghamshire hopes that they would seize a decisive early advantage.

The crowd is wrapped up in it all at Scarborough, too. As at most outgrounds, with North Marine Road and Cheltenham the grandest of the genre, they are closer to the action and their joys are thus plainer than they might be when expressed from half way up a tiered concrete mountain. Their disappointment could also be touched when Whitby-born Lyth was run out at the bowler's end, Mullaney tipping a fierce drive from Alex Lees on to the stumps and wheeling away in glee like a boy who had snagged an apple.

The concern of most of the 5000 folk in the ground turned to plain worry half an hour later as Yorkshire slipped helplessly to 36 for 4. Lees and Jake Lehmann both edged catches in the slips when failing to cover Mullaney's movement on a heavy morning and Gary Ballance was leg before to an inswinger from Luke Fletcher.

Then it all got worse for Yorkshire as Tim Bresnan was lbw when playing no shot and Jack Leaning was caught at second slip by Patel when playing a rotten one. These dismissals sent the North Marine Road diehards into a rumble of discontent and understandably so. Bresnan, normally the shrewdest of cricketers, fell to Mullaney's umpteenth inswinger of the morning while Leaning played the sort of stroke he might favour when giving his team mates their morning catching practice.

This latter limpness was particularly ill-timed, given that Leaning, like Rafiq, had been presented with his first-team cap by the club president John Hampshire 20 minutes before play began. In the old days the former Yorkshire skipper, Brian Sellers, might have advocated that same cap being depetalled at tea. The current Director of Cricket, Martyn Moxon, may have to settle for a bollocking.

As it turned out, 51 for 6 represented Yorkshire's lowest point of the day, just as it may yet be viewed as Nottinghamshire's best moment of the whole match as Rafiq and Hodd countered. Rafiq hit five boundaries before lunch with a clip square off Brett Hutton offering a portent of his later aggression. Hodd also started as he meant to go on, working his three fours to third man or long leg.

In the afternoon, they strengthened the recovery. Rafiq drove Hutton through the leg side for successive fours and went to his fifty off 75 balls. Hodd played the supporting role to perfection, plainly realising that this was a day on which every run was precious.

It was Nottinghamshire's spinners who eventually made the breakthrough, Patel being a trifle fortunate to have Rafiq lbw when the ball seemed to be straying down leg and Imran Tahir dismissing Patterson in similar but less controversial manner. By now, though, Read's bowlers had lost their grip and every fielding error was chi-iked by the crowd at the Peasholm Park End.

Jack Brooks only improved the crowd's mood during his 66-ball 48, an innings which included seven fours and a hooked six off Mullaney which rather symbolised the changed balance of the game. Hodd again took his cue from his partner, a strange and flattering position for Brooks to occupy but one which he probably rather enjoyed. And Yorkshire's No 10 was only five short of his best first-class score of 53 when he cut a ball from Brett Hutton onto his stumps, leaving Hodd to negotiate his way to three figures with Ryan Sidebottom for company.

A couple of singles took the Yorkshire wicketkeeper to within a boundary of his goal but Sidebottom propped forward to Hutton in a manner which proved to be nothing like as reliable as it used to be in the days before DRS. Hodd took a standing ovation from the crowd as he ran off to get ready to keep wicket.

As is so often the case, late resistance, such as Brooks and Hodd's 88-run stand, helped to take early wickets. Jake Libby was lbw for a first-ball nought to Brooks's first delivery of the innings and Tom Moores, who was making his Nottinghamshire debut, nicked Bresnan to Lyth at slip in the final over of the day.