Ricardo Vasconcelos and Will Young made a confident start to Northamptonshire’s reply as runs flowed for the batsmen on Day 3 of the clash with Yorkshire.
Yorkshire’s George Hill posted a maiden first-class century as the visitors set a notional 499 to win on an increasingly batsmen-friendly surface.
Northamptonshire needed to make early inroads and were buoyed by the wicket of Adam Lyth soon after the former England opener reached his half-century. Lyth played a flat-footed drive to Matt Kelly only to edge the ball through to the keeper.
From then on it was all-out attack. Despite a typically tight spell from Ben Sanderson early on, Yorkshire found runs increasingly easy to come by as the day progressed.
After lunch Northamptonshire turned to the spinners to get ahead of the over rate but Yorkshire rotated the strike confidently in cold, blustery conditions. It was spin that found a breakthrough for Northamptonshire as Malan’s attempted slog sweep picked out Emilio Gay who took a good diving catch just in front of the ropes.
With the declaration in mind, the Yorkshire youngsters of Hill and Brook found a flurry of boundaries either side of tea on the way to a declaration with the score 406/3.
Vasconcelos was hit in ribs by Jordan Thompson early in the reply, but soon settled and started to find the boundary regularly. Northamptonshire’s openers looked increasingly comfortable as the innings progressed though they have a huge task ahead of them tomorrow to bat out the day and secure the draw.
Yorkshire 296 (Berg 5/58, Sanderson 2/40) & 406/3d (Procter 1/37, Keogh 1/52)
Northamptonshire 204 (Gay 65, Procter 38*) & 56/0 (Young 26*, Vasconcelos 25*)