OLD habits die hard, and Yorkshire’s trend of allowing wickets to tumble in quick succession reared it’s head on day one at Headingley as Somerset were allowed to take control, leaving Martyn Moxon fuming.
Moxon was too angry to talk at the close of a day when the visitors didn’t bowl particularly well, yet eight Tykes wickets went down with only 269 runs on the board.
It was a dismal day for Yorkshire, but not so for debutant Jonathan Bairstow who was called up to replace the injured Michael Vaughan and played with an assertiveness that the former England captain would have been proud of.
Bairstow isn’t a bad surname to have when it comes to representing the Tykes and the son of former Yorkshire and England wicket keeper David, excelled.
He was subject to some zealous over appealing from the field early on but the teenager refused to be rattled, offering a courageous leave first ball and waiting five deliveries before getting off the mark with a smart punched single straight down the ground.
It wasn’t long before he hit his first boundary, a neat pull to the square leg fence, and the youngster looked well set until he was unfortunate to be removed when correctly attacking a poor full toss from Mike Munday, only to miss as the ball clipped the top of off stump.
Bairstow’s 28 was vital in a 50 stand with Andrew Gale but it was Joe Sayers who scored best individually, completing his half century inside the first over after lunch.
His innings included one tremendous six over the longest boundary at deep square in a shot that highlighted his exceptional progress over the winter.
The opener was eventually removed thanks to a regulation edge to second slip catch by Justin Langer off Charl Willoughby for 60.
Tim Bresnan (48) and Gerard Brophy (33) provided the only other positives for Yorkshire, keeping the Tykes in touch with a stand of 82 that saw the hosts through the tea break but both were then dismissed with wild shots as first Bresnan mis-timed a sweep and was caught ten yards from the rope by Willoughby and then Brophy top edged straight back to the welcoming hands of Alfonso Thomas.
Rana Naved lost his wicket in between when stepping waywardly across his crease and allowing himself to be bowled with the stumps unguarded as Yorkshire crashed from 248 for five to 269 for eight at stumps.
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