YORKSHIRE put themselves in a strong position at the halfway stage of their Specsavers County Championship match against Durham at Headingley, despite being made to work hard for their wickets.

Defending a first-innings total of 460, Yorkshire managed to take two wickets in each of day two's afternoon and evening sessions as Durham closed on 205-4 from 70 overs, a deficit of 255.

Steve Patterson, who unusually conceded 14 runs off his first four balls, struck twice and Jack Brooks and Tim Bresnan once apiece.

On another day, Durham could have easily been seven or eight down. Instead they will be confident of reaching 311 to avoid the follow-on, although coach Jason Gillespie suggested it is unlikely Yorkshire would enforce it.

Jake Lehmann dropped two catches at third slip to let Keaton Jennings and Jack Burnham off the hook on nought and seven respectively. They went on to post 40 and 34 not out respectively.

Gillespie said: "We were pleased to score the runs we scored. The tail wagged a bit, which has happened in the past.

"The bowling effort, by and large, was good. The first hour could have been a lot better – that was disappointing – but the lads acknowledged that and the key is how we responded.

"After that first hour, I thought were very good. Overall, I'm a happy coach."

Jennings, the country's leading Championship run-scorer, shared partnerships of 56 with Mark Stoneman and then 57 alongside Scott Borthwick, who made 53, for the first two wickets.

Durham reached 52-0 after 10 overs of their reply but Yorkshire's bowling improved markedly afterwards as the visiting batsmen played and missed on countless occasions.

"We didn't bowl well enough early on and we need to adapt quicker – to find a solution to getting it right quicker," said Gillespie.

"We can't afford for teams to get off to a flyer like that, it's not good enough. But the lads knew that. It was too full, too wide – but that can happen.

"If we're going to bowl sides out, we need to be ruthless and we weren't in that first 10 overs. All the bowlers worked hard and pegged it back nicely.

"For me, the follow-on is very simple. If you've spent more than 70 or 80 overs in the field, it's pretty unlikely you enforce unless time is running out."

Brooks had Stoneman caught superbly by Adam Lyth at second slip for 38 in the 11th over before Patterson had Jennings caught behind with 113 on the board in the 33rd over.

After tea, Borthwick reached 50 off 93 balls before he also edged to Lyth at second slip off Patterson as Durham slipped to 154-3 in the 49th over.

That became 165-4 in the 58th when Bresnan forced Paul Collingwood to chop onto his stumps – the third batsman to do so in the day.

The other two were Yorkshire batsmen as they advanced from 341-5 overnight during the morning, adding 119 runs.

Andrew Hodd made 31, Azeem Rafiq 45 and Brooks 36, although the defending champions fell eight runs short of a fifth batting bonus point on 392-7 after 110 overs.

Meanwhile, Yorkshire have announced that, after consulting with members, Scarborough will retain two Championship matches from 2017 despite the cut from 16 to 14 matches.