YORKSHIRE began and ended the day brightly at Scarborough yesterday where they were fired out for 187 by Leicestershire who picked up a first innings lead of 179 and then declined to enforce the follow-on.

At Grace Road in mid-May, Yorkshire pulled off a sensational victory after trailing by 127 runs and there were visions of this game going down the same route as Leicestershire lost both openers without scoring.

Normality returned for a while but the fall off three late wickets left Leicestershire on 106-5 at the close which put them 285 in front and kept Yorkshire in with a shout of turning the tables still further.

Leicestershire set out on 342-7 with the eighth-wicket stand between Ottis Gibson and Claude Henderson already worth 116 but Deon Kruis brought a swift end to the innings with three wickets in nine balls at a cost of only five runs.

Henderson went first for 49, spearing a catch to second slip, and he was followed in Kruis's next over by Gibson and Charl Willougby to consecutive deliveries, Gibson's brave 93.

A promising start for Yorkshire by Matthew Wood and Joe Sayers was ruined as three wickets fell in as many overs, Wood falling lbw to Gibson, Sayers giving catching practice to Darren Robinson at their slip and Anthony McGrath seemingly unfortunate to become another lbw victim for Gibson.

Ian Harvey was bowled off his glove by a testing ball from Willoughby to make it 44-4 and after a brief recovery Jaques attempted to pull the same bowler only to lob a catch to Henderson at mid-on.

Craig White got to 33 before helping a ball from Willoughby on its way through to Paul Nixon and although Richard Dawson and Mark Lawson both profited from some positive strokeplay the best innings came from Ismail Dawood who applied himself sensibly for his 45.

Dawood was caught behind as Stuart Broad took the last two wickets in three balls but Leicestershire were not immune from one or two shocks themselves and Tim Bresnan's first ball of their second innings was chopped into his stumps by Robinson.

Kruis would have achieved a hat-trick spread over two innings had his confident first ball shout for lbw against Maddy succeeded but the batsman still failed to score because he fended a lifter from Bresnan to Wood at second slip.

John Maunders and Chris Rogers put Leicestershire back in charge with a 66 stand but when Dawson trapped Rogers lbw sweeping for 35 it renewed Yorkshire's energy and two strikes by McGrath helped even out the game again, Maunders hitting across the line to mid-wicket and Hylton Ackerman edging a slip catch to Jaques.

SCOREBOARD

Frizzell County Championship

Division 2

Yorkshire v Leicestershire

at Scarborough

(day 2 of 4 today)

Leicestershire won toss

Leicestershire firt innings: 366 (C Rogers 93, O Gibson 91; D Kruis 4-0)

Yorkshire First Innings

Wood lbw b Gibson 21

Sayers c Robinson b Willoughby 5

McGrath lbw b Gibson 4

Jaques c Henderson b Willoughby 22

Harvey b Broad 4

White c Nixon b Willoughby 33

Dawood c Nixon b Broad 45

Dawson lbw b Gibson 20

Bresnan lbw b Maddy 3

Lawson not out 20

Kruis c Gibson b Broad 0

Extras b4 lb2 w4 10

Total (56.3 overs) 187

Fall: 1-26 2-26 3-30 4-44 5-85 6-98 7-132 8-147 9-187

Bowling: Gibson 18-4-36-3 Willoughby 17-2-55-3 Broad 8.3-1-35-3 Maddy 10-2-33-1 Henderson 3-1-22-0

Leicestershire Second Innings

Robinson b Bresnan 0

Maddy c Wood b Bresnan 0

Maunders c Dawson b McGrath 48

Rogers lbw b Dawson 35

Ackerman c Jaques b McGrath 10

Henderson not out 2

Habib not out 4

Extras lb1 nb6 7

Total 5 wkts (39 overs) 106

Fall: 1-0 2-13 3-78 4-99 5-100

Bowling: Bresnan 9-0-29-2 Kruis 12-4-11-0 Harvey 4-1-12-0 Lawson 3-0-23-0 Dawson 7-0-20-1 McGrath 4-1-10-2

Umpires: R J Bailey and N A Mallender

Updated: 10:45 Friday, July 22, 2005