MATTHEW Elliott again proved to be the perfect replacement for Darren Lehmann with a fighting innings of 92 at the Rose Bowl yesterday.

Although Yorkshire gained a first innings lead of only 11 over Hampshire they finished the day poised to record their second consecutive victory in their fight to avoid relegation.

Hampshire lost four quick wickets towards the close and at stumps were reeling on 91 for six, just 80 in front.

On his Championship debut for Yorkshire in the Roses clash at Old Trafford, Elliott just missed out on a century when he fell lbw for 83.

It was a similar story yesterday, Dimitri Mascarenhas trapping the Australian in front of his stumps after he had faced 182 balls and struck 13 beefy fours.

In between these two matches, Elliott hammered 109 on his first appearance for Yorkshire Phoenix in the Norwich Union League against Leicestershire Foxes.

Yorkshire are hoping that he does not run out of steam before the C&G Trophy final against Somerset at Lord's on Saturday.

Although Elliott is a naturally watchful and correct player, he wastes no opportunity to go on the attack and a feature of his batting was his firm straight driving.

He was not afraid to step down the pitch in order to attack Shaun Udal, who bowled splendidly to take 5-69 and become the first off-spinner in the country to reach 50 first class wickets this season.

Although Elliott's innings spanned 65 overs, nobody else managed to stay for long, but McGrath was unlucky to play Udal on to his off-bail after helping Elliott add a breezy 56 in only 12 overs for the fourth wicket.

Michael Lumb had two stumps spectacularly plucked out of the ground by James Tomlinson and Gary Fellows then put on 65 with Elliott before falling to a catch at the third or fourth attempt by Mascarenhas at slip.

Yorkshire were conscious of the psychological advantage of a first innings lead and it was last man Ryan Sidebottom who stayed long enough with captain Richard Blakey to get them there.

Blakey ended unbeaten on 34 to top 700 championship runs for the season, Yorkshire's second heaviest scorer behind Lehmann.

Chris Silverwood batted but did not bowl because of his ankle injury. Sidebottom split the opening pair by pinning Jason Laney lbw. McGrath came on and at 53 he moved one away from Neil Johnson and Elliott scooped up the catch at slip.

Just as John Crawley and Robin Smith were looking set until stumps the game swung dramatically Yorkshire's way with three wickets going down in five balls for one run.

Steven Kirby got Smith lbw for the second time in the match and two balls later nightwatchman James Hamblin edged to Blakey. In the next over, John Francis went back on his stumps to Richard Dawson and was lbw to bag a pair and Hampshire were in disarray at 84-5.

In the penultimate over, Crawley tried to drive Dawson over the top and was magnificently caught by Sidebottom at mid-on.

Frizzell County Championship

Division One

Hampshire v Yorkshire

(at Southampton, 3rd day of 4)

Hampshire 1st innings: 269 (Smith 58, McGrath 4-49).

Yorkshire 1st innings: 280 (Elliott 92, Udal 5-69).

Hampshire Second Innings

Johnson c Elliott b McGrath 18

Laney lbw b Sidebottom 10

Crawley c Sidebottom b Dawson 26

Smith lbw b Kirby 18

Hamblin c Blakey b Kirby 0

Francis lbw b Dawson 0

Kendall not out 1

Mascarenhas not out 0

Extras (b9 lb5 w4) 18

Total (6 wkts, 34 overs) 91

Fall: 1-26 2-53 3-83 4-83 5-84 6-87

Bowling: Kirby 13-5-31-2 Sidebottom 5-1-18-1 McGrath 5-1-6-1 Dawson 11-1-22-2.

Updated: 12:38 Thursday, August 29, 2002