A violent breakfast time thunderstorm flooded Riverside today and held up Yorkshire's progress in their Championship match against Durham.

Yorkshire were due to resume the third day on two without loss in their second innings with an overall lead of 123.

With thunder continuing to rumble around, however, prospects were far from promising and the last thing Yorkshire needed was for bad weather to get in the way of a possible third consecutive Championship victory.

Durham yesterday battled away bravely to reach the 299 they required to avoid the follow-on and after hitting their target with two wickets in hand they were finally bowled out for 327.

Happy to gain a useful first innings lead, Yorkshire were nevertheless disappointed not to dispose of Durham more rapidly after Craig White's unblemished 135no had taken them to a healthy 448.

Although all eyes were on Darren Gough, who gave further evidence he is fit for Test cricket again by bowling a total of 18 overs for one wicket, the focus of attention was twice centred on confrontations between Yorkshire's feisty redhead, Steve Kirby, and Durham's Pakistani tearaway paceman, Shoaib Akhtar - and how the crowd loved it.

The duel was sparked off when Kirby came in as last man to lend sterling support to White in a courageous 66 tenth-wicket stand.

Shoaib, who had earlier collected three wickets in a long and testing spell, sent down a beamer which flashed past Kirby's head and the batsman's response was to hurl his helmet on to the ground and march down the track towards Akhtar before being persuaded to retreat by White.

In mounting tension, Kirby ducked into a short ball which did not rise as much as he expected and then survived a loud shout for lbw before raising cheers from the Yorkshire fans by smashing Akhtar through mid-wicket for four.

The skirmish was won by Kirby because Shoaib was withdrawn from the attack but the battle continued in the evening when it was Shoaib's turn to bat with Durham on 240-7 and still in danger of following on.

Akhtar began to lash out at nearly every ball, blasting Anthony McGrath for a massive six, and when Yorkshire turned to Kirby it brought another buzz from the crowd. Once again Kirby emerged the winner because he soon dug one in short and Shoaib hooked to long leg where Matthew Wood held a great running catch on the boundary edge.

It was Kirby who had got rid of Jon Lewis and Gordon Muchall cheaply at the start of the Durham innings and he also wrapped things up by dismissing Graeme Bridge to finish with Yorkshire's best figures of 4-93, taking his tally in three Championship matches to 23 wickets.

Durham were never cowed and although no-one managed a really big score, Michael Gough, Gary Pratt and Bridge all contributed gallant half-centuries.

There was drama from the second ball of the day when Shoaib had Andy Gray caught at cover for 60 to end his seventh wicket stand of 143. By the time he ran out of partners White had faced 239 deliveries and struck 24 boundaries.

Updated: 12:36 Thursday, July 17, 2003