Tim Bresnan century keeps Yorkshire’s title hopes alive against Middlesex

It was the equinox and the autumnal shadows were already stretching out across the Lord’s turf when the Yorkshire team took the field and began their charge towards what they hoped on the final day of the season would be the County Championship title for the third year in a row.

A colossal innings of immense character from Tim Bresnan and lower‑order defiance first from Azeem Rafiq and then the old warhorse Ryan Sidebottom, took Yorkshire to the fourth batting point they needed to ensure they remained in the race and then, with what proved to be a 56-run last-wicket partnership, beyond to a lead of 120.

This provided a tricky situation for Middlesex. With the points, potentially, still to win the title themselves, they were scarcely in a position to do so, the more so when Sidebottom removed Sam Robson in his first over and Jack Brooks castled Nick Compton in his second. This being so, it became incumbent on Middlesex to do all they could to ensure Yorkshire do not win (it is in the genes of the Middle Saxon) and by the close they had reached 81 for two from 38 overs, still 39 adrift, with Nick Gubbins on 38 and Dawid Malan 37.

There does, though, remain an outside possibility that Middlesex could bat long enough to set Yorkshire a Twenty20-type run‑rate knowing they would have to go for it. They would be holding their breath in Taunton at that. A fiver will get entry to Lord’s for the last day, which has got to be worth it.

Context is everything: they all count but would Yorkshire or any side have fought tooth and claw for a single point in the first match of the season as much as they did in this last game? For an hour after lunch, there was cricket the drama and intensity of which may not have been matched all summer, such is the finale to the championship. Yorkshiremen will know their cricket history. At The Oval in 1902, with England requiring 15 runs from their last wicket to beat Australia, Yorkshire’s great all‑rounder George Hirst was joined by his fellow Tyke Wilfred Rhodes. “Wilfred,” Hirst, apocryphally or not, is said to have told his partner, “we shall get them in singles.” Thirteen singles and a two later and England had won. Bresnan and Sidebottom did not require 15 runs for the invaluable bonus point but 16 rather and 13 overs later, after a rain break of an hour with the score tantalisingly one run short, Sidebottom clipped away a boundary that took them beyond 350.

It is doubtful if any spectator bit through the handle of an umbrella as one did in the tension at The Oval that day but it had been excruciating nail-biting stuff. Bresnan, his fifth first-class century under his belt already, was magnificent, farming the strike as Middlesex set the field back for him but showing faith in Sidebottom, who responded with the most steadfast of forward defensives, each greeted with a roar of approval from the considerable Yorkshire element in the crowd. The spirit of Hirst seemed to be there and singles accrued, broken only when Bresnan clipped Tim Murtagh over the infield to the midwicket boundary.

The Middlesex bowlers pegged them back, squeezing them as tight as a Victorian corset. Steven Finn thundered in to the backdrop of the pavilion and gave it everything to flog something from the pitch. All the while brooding clouds, streaked with rain, had been sidling up from the west. The thinnest of thin edges on to his pad deprived Toby Roland-Jones of Sidebottom’s wicket – heart-stopping for Yorkshire for it looked plumb and but for the umpire’s diligence in spotting it, would have been – and, with that single run still needed, the rain began.

Should Yorkshire go on to take the title, Bresnan deserves the freedom of the Broad Acres and forced rhubarb for life, for this was a heroic innings. Strapping the pads on in the sixth over of the innings and at the crease in the tenth, he gave practically nothing resembling a chance over the course of the next seven and a half hours. It contained a dozen fours and a six but none is impacted on the mind: rather it was a display of unflappable concentration and efficiency, his hundred, reached with a galloping three, from 222 deliveries.

Middlesex, though, have not played like champions-in-waiting and they did themselves no favours on the third day. Rafiq showed considerable guts during his innings of 65, ended only when Murtagh removed his off‑stump with the seventh- wicket stand with Bresnan worth 114. But it was a streaky innings, during which twice he edged the ball over the slips from the shoulder of his bat and, when a fly slip was posted precisely for that purpose, Compton dropped the catch. Rafiq had 32 at the time. Six runs later Ollie Rayner, he of the bucket hands, put him down at second slip.

Shortly after he had reached his half-century, Rafiq ducked into a bouncer from Roland-Jones that rattled his brains and ruined his batting helmet. Still he dug in. Before the game Andrew Gale, the Yorkshire captain, had said he wanted 11 players who would give their all for Yorkshire and in Bresnan, Rafiq and Sidebottom he had three who took him at his word. It was a compelling day’s cricket.