ALL the excitement came early on at Old Trafford yesterday when Craig White completed Yorkshire's 100th Championship Roses century and Deon Kruis smashed an enormous six on to the roof of the pavilion.

Kruis' massive blow off spinner Gary Keedy brought down two tiles that almost crowned former Test umpire Dickie Bird as he sat on the committee balcony.

The tiles grazed his hand on the way down and then flew over the railings and landed on the ground, fortunately missing spectators.

"I felt this pain down the side of my hand and thought at first that I'd been stung," said Bird. "If they'd struck me on the head I wouldn't be here talking about it now.

"It was a massive hit, one of the biggest I have ever seen, but it was a bit too close for comfort when the tiles came showering down."

Kruis's enormous blow over mid-wicket was one of three big sixes by the South African as he struck 35 off 24 balls while keeping White company during a last wicket stand of 56 in eight overs.

Not only did Kruis's big hitting help to bring Yorkshire a fifth batting bonus point but his occupation of the crease also allowed White to move from 89 to his first century in over two years.

When Kruis finally sliced James Anderson to Mal Loye on the third man boundary the Yorkshire captain was left stranded on 110 from 196 balls with 14 fours and a six.

Yorkshire managed to advance their overnight 324-6 to a useful 417 all out but they soon realised they needed every run as Lancashire openers Mark Chilton and Ian Sutcliffe mercilessly ground down their attack on an unresponsive pitch for fast bowlers.

The pair moved relentlessly on to a record opening stand in a Roses match for Lancashire of 223, their partnership beating the 181 between Reggie Spooner and Harry Makepeace at Old Trafford in 1912.

Chilton completed his second consecutive Roses century off 197 balls with 11 boundaries and Sutcliffe looked certain to join him on three figures until he held out his bat at the first delivery of a new spell from Tim Bresnan and was caught behind for 93.

Yorkshire have become heartily sick this season of Lancashire's two Yorkshire-born openers because Chilton made 112 in the second innings at Headingley in June and in the same match Sutcliffe hammered 153 and 52.

Sutcliffe was ruled not out on 45 by the television umpire when Dawood thought he had taken a clean catch off Kruis. There were a couple of escapes for Chilton when Dawood missed chances standing up to the stumps to Anthony McGrath, but for most of the time the two batsmen ruled the roost.

Bresnan struck in the final over of the day by trapping Loye lbw to leave Chilton unbeaten on a career best 130 out of 243-2.

SCOREBOARD

Frizzell County Championship

Division Two

(Day 3 of 4 today)

Lancashire v Yorkshire

(at Old Trafford)

Yorkshire First Innings

Wood c Symonds b Anderson 86

Sayers c Law b Chapple 14

McGrath c Hegg b Chapple 35

Jaques lbw b Symonds 14

Lumb b Keedy 34

White not out 110

Dawood c Law b North 28

Dawson lbw b Chapple 27

Bresnan c Hegg b Keedy 11

Silverwood b Anderson 6

Kruis c Loye b Anderson 35

Extras b4 lb7 w4 nb2 17

Total (125 overs) 417

Fall: 1-58 2-118 3-148 4-176 5-214 6-268 7-324 8-350 9-361

Bowling: Anderson 23-2-100-3 Cork 27-7-58-0 Chapple 23-2-78-3 Keedy 25-4-101-2 Symonds 20-5-53-1 North 7-2-16-1

Lancashire First Innings

Chilton not out 130

Sutcliffe c Dawood b Bresnan 93

Loye lbw b Bresnan 11

Extras b2 lb5 nb2 9

Total 2 wkts (80.1 overs) 243

Fall: 1-223 2-243

Bowling: Silverwood 13-1-42-0 Kruis 17-4-56-0 Dawson 18-4-53-0 Bresnan 21.1-5-56-2 McGrath 9-2-23-0 Lumb 2-0-6-0

Umpires: V A Holder and J F Steele

Div 2 cont.

New Road: Somerset 318 (C M Gazzard 74, A V Suppiah 72) v Worcestershire 492-3 (Z de Bruyn 161, B F Smith 117 no, S D Peters 88, S M Davies 79 no)

Derby: Derbyshire 426 (L D Sutton 88, S D Stubbings 64, M A Sheikh 55, Hassan Adnan 52; Danish Kaneria 6-111) v Essex 113-4 (G W Flower 60 no)

Division One

Lord's: Sussex 522 (M H Yardy 179, Naved-ul-Hasan 139, M J G Davis 50) v Middlesex 128 (R S C Martin-Jenkins 4-31) & 162 (E T Smith 69, Mushtaq Ahmed 6-44, Naved-ul-Hasan 4-54) Sussex (22pts) beat Middlesex (3pts) by an innings and 232 runs.

The Brit Oval: Gloucestershire 350 (S J Adshead 148 no, A P R Gidman 84) v Surrey 409-7 (M R Ramprakash 185 no, J N Batty 56)

totesport League

Division One

Northampton: Northamptonshire Steelbacks 201 (M H Wessels 80) v Glamorgan Dragons 203-5 (R D B Croft 81 no) Glamorgan beat Northamptonshire by 5 wkts.

Tour Match

Canterbury: Bangladesh 'A' 185 (Tushar Imran 86; M J Saggers 5-48) & 155 (Shahriar Nafees 58; R H Joseph 5-19) v Kent 153 (Syed Rasel 7-50) & 188-7 (N J Dexter 54) Kent beat Bangladesh 'A' by 3 wkts.

Third Under 19 Test Match

Headingley: England 298 (B W Harmison 57, M M Ali 52 no, V Chopra 50) & 366-5 dec (M M Ali 100 no, C E J Thompson 60, K J Latouf 56) v Sri Lanka 155 (M M Ali 4-29) & 330 (A D Mathews 123 no, T A M Peiris 74, M C A Fernando 52, T C P Smith 4-77) England Under 19 beat Sri Lanka Under 19 by 179 runs.

Updated: 11:45 Thursday, August 18, 2005