Yorkshire Hold Upper Hand At Old Trafford
Bresnan celebrates dismissing Law.
Yorkshire claimed the early advantage in their LV County Championship Roses clash against Lancashire when play finally got under way midway through the second day at Old Trafford.
Lancashire were reduced to 87 for four, after winning the toss and electing to bat, and closed the day on 204 for eight from 64 overs.
Leg-spinner Adil Rashid continued his fine run of form with an impressive spell of three for 84 from 26 overs on the reel.
Rashid secured a career-best analysis of seven for 107 in the LV Division One defeat against Hampshire last week.
Lancashire all-rounder Steven Croft tried his best to hold the innings together with an unbeaten 56. His half-century came off 106 balls with five fours.
Tim Bresnan also claimed a couple of wickets, those of Stuart Law (37) and Lou Vincent in the first two overs of his second spell. The England Lions hopeful completed the day with figures of two for 22 from six overs.
Bresnan, who played four one-day internationals and two Twenty20 internationals in 2006, will get the chance to impress the England selectors again when he features for the Lions against South Africa in a 50-over game at Derby on Saturday.
Another England hopeful is Matthew Hoggard. He was also impressive in notching three wickets for 26 from 13 overs, returning after tea to help dash any hopes of a Red Rose revival.
Hoggard set Yorkshire on their way with the wicket of Iain Sutcliffe, promoted to open instead of Vincent, in the third over and then came back to remove Luke Sutton and Glen Chapple.
Sutton was strangled down the legside and Chapple was bowled with his middle stump rocked back. Sutcliffe had seen his off stump cartwheel.
While Hoggard came away with the best stats of the day this was a period of play that belonged to Rashid.
He is in his best form of the season and bowled with flight and guile on a track that is only taking slow turn.
He trapped Paul Horton plum in front with a quicker ball to leave Lancashire at 57 for two and also had Francois Du Plessis (38) caught at short cover and Dominic Cork caught by a diving Rana Naved-ul-Hasan at mid off.
Prior to this game Lancashire had only claimed 22 batting bonus points out of a possible 50 and have only passed 400 once all season - in the reverse fixture at Headingley.
While Yorkshire bowled with great discipline and must be applauded for it on a pitch that is offering little in terms of assistance, some of Lancashire's shot selections left a little to be desired.
Vincent, for example, was dropped down to number five in the order after a poor run of form. And it showed when he was caught behind needlessly flashing hard at Bresnan.
Vincent had slashed Bresnan over the slip cordon for four the previous order.
All is not lost yet for Lancashire. Yorkshire have had batting problems of their own in recent times as they have slipped into the relegation zone on the back of four defeats in five games.