Cricket: Gough yorks the red rose men: Derek Hodgson reports from Old Trafford
Yorkshire 242 and 187-3 Lancashire 167
LANCASHIRE called members to a special meeting with the committee last night. The subject was not the current woeful form of the first team but to discuss a proposal to name stands on this ground after the club's great players.
Just what 'Monkey' Hornby or Archie MacLaren, who will be among the first ex-captains to be honoured, would think about the present team is beyond conjecture. After Lancashire's extraordinary defeat in the Benson and Hedges Cup Final, one of the strongest teams in the Championship have had a dismal time, relieved temporarily by an equally extraordinary win over the Australians, which could culminate in a second defeat this summer by the oldest foe of all.
Overnight rain cost 15 overs at the start but, if anything, Thursday's awkward pitch played a little more easily, yet Lancashire's last seven wickets went down for only 95 more runs as Peter Hartley and his rumbustious apprentice Darren Gough ripped through the innings. Gough finished with two cracking yorkers to bring his first-class wicket total this season to 36, at an average of 24.
Yorkshire's elder statesman, Phil Carrick, recalled at 41 because of Richard Stemp's bruised ribs, gave Richard Blakey the chance to make a slick stumping, and if Peter Martin had not laid about him the innings might have folded for less than 150, despite Phillip DeFreitas's defiance.
Yorkshire were batting again soon after 3pm with a lead of 75 and although Martyn Moxon fell to a good gully catch his seemingly nerveless young partner, Michael Vaughan, and Richie Richardson steadily increased the advantage. Vaughan kept pace with the West Indian as Neil Fairbrother rotated an attack top-heavy on pace.
DeFreitas eventually had Vaughan caught leg-side, fencing, but Richardson went to a half-century off 87 balls.
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