After the heady excitement of the Ashes Test yesterday, Old Trafford was still buzzing today as one of the most crucial Roses matches in years started.

Yorkshire are second in the division two championship table with Lancashire holding the third promotion spot and only two-and-a-half points behind.

Both sides still have five matches to play and each has a game in hand over leaders Durham.

Roses games are never taken lightly, but there was extra tension today because the winners will almost certainly clinch promotion, while the losers will still be left with a lot of work to do.

Yorkshire entered the game continuing to boast the only unbeaten record in either division of the Championship, but only heroic batting from Matthew Hoggard prevented them from losing to Lancashire at Headingley in June.

Quarter-of-an-hour before tea on the final day, Yorkshire looked to be in a hopeless situation at 182-8 and Lancashire thought they would have completed a crushing victory by the interval.

But Hoggard battled away for 41 overs to save the match, first putting on 45 in 20 overs with Richard Dawson and then an unbroken 46 in 21 overs with last man Deon Kruis to leave Lancashire tearing their hair out.

Hoggard's unbeaten 64 used up 146 minutes and the second highest score of his career was made off 138 balls with nine boundaries.

Bradford-born Anthony McGrath went into today's match with plenty of good form behind him. He needs to take 146 runs out of the game to complete 1,000 runs in a season for the first time in his career.

This season is the first since 2002 that Yorkshire have met up with Lancashire and McGrath still has fond memories of the Headingley encounter of that year when he plundered 165 and put on a staggering 317 for the third wicket with Darren Lehmann, who made 187.

"I think it is great that we have got Roses matches in the Championship again because you always want to play against the old enemy," said McGrath.

"Lancashire outplayed us at Headingley this time and it needed a real rearguard action from Hoggy to save us but we have shown all season that we can be very difficult to beat.

"We will all be fully focussed at Old Trafford over the next few days."

Updated: 10:59 Tuesday, August 16, 2005