yorkshire (a) 19th-22nd april, yorkshire vs essex, headingley.

as to be expected, the weather will play a huge role in many games played in april and at a wet and miserable headingley, it was definitely game, set and match to the rain. not one ball was bowled on day one, already signficantly damaging the chances of a positive result from the game. start of day two,yorkshire won the toss and chose to bat; a fantastic century from jaques putting yorkshire in a great position before a batting collapse of epic proportions - losing six wickets for just 21 runs. young left-armer mills picking up four wickets and the ever impressive masters with figures of 3-65. unsurprisingly for those who watch essex on a regular basis, it was same old, same old: great work by the bowlers quickly undone by the essex batsmen. ravi bopara, back from england's tour of sri lanka, kept the eagles in the game with a fantastic 117*. the second highest contribution was just 25 from captain james foster. the same problem never resolved despite an impressive batting line up (on paper at least). take nothing away from the yorkshire bowlers; sidebottom and patterson took eight wickets between them and bowled majestically. yorkshire started their second innings well and with the rain seemingly nowhere to be seen, fancied their chances of winning the game. root and sayers putting on 106 before root was caught behind off the bowling of all-rounder greg smith for 67. sayers and gale added crucial runs as yorkshire declared on 212-4, setting the visitors 262 to win. openers petersen and godleman both falling lbw to shazhad quickly, with the game slowly slipping away from essex. luckily the rain dance worked and no more play was possible on day four. the match was abandoned and essex somehow escaped with a draw.