Frustration for Yorkshire as all-but 26 overs are wiped out (From York Press)

Frustration for Yorkshire as all-but 26 overs are wiped out

10:53am Friday 13th July 2012 in Sport By Chris Parrott

Rain, rain and more rain. It was a familiar story at The Ageas Bowl yesterday as the elements once again thwarted Yorkshire and Hampshire in the LV= County Championship.

After day one of the division two clash was wiped out by the weather on Wednesday, the black clouds returned to Southampton to allow only 26 overs of play on day two.

Yorkshire reached 83-3 by the time the action was called off, with Joe Root stranded on 46 not out and Gary Ballance unbeaten on 17.

“It’s so frustrating,” admitted Root.

“It’s almost impossible to get some momentum going in the four-day game at the moment because of this weather.”

His annoyance at the elements is understandable.

The weather looks increasingly like it will turn this season’s promotion race into somewhat of a lottery in the second division.

It is already clear that fewer points will be needed to go up than in previous years, with the stats in terms of Yorkshire’s luck with rain this season making for grim reading.

They’ve lost seven full days of action out of the 33 that they’ve played including yesterday, with no Championship game this season able to run its full course.

Added to this, the last time a full day was possible was against Hampshire on day one of the corresponding fixture at Headingley back in early May.

In the action which was possible yesterday, it was Root who was the star of the show for Yorkshire.

Batting first on a green top and in overhead conditions which suited the bowling team, he was the only Tykes batsman to get to grips with the Hampshire attack.

His unbeaten 46 contained six sumptuous drives which went to the boundary rope, with the 21-year-old’s innings all the more important after the county had got off to a worryingly bad start.

Adam Lyth perished inside four overs to James Tomlinson for only two, with Kabir Ali then reducing Yorkshire to 28-3 with two wickets in as many balls.

Stand-in captain Phil Jaques was his first victim for 12, before York-based Jonny Bairstow’s poor run continued with a first ball duck.

It is now 131 runs in ten innings for Bairstow since he was handed his first England Test call in May, with 68 of those coming in one knock for Yorkshire against Northants.

As he departed to Ali the signs looked ominous. Fortunately, Root was then joined by Ballance in the middle as the Tykes mounted a fight-back before the rain arrived 16 overs later.

By this stage, they had added 55 unbroken runs for the fourth wicket, before play was eventually abandoned at tea with no sign of the weather improving.

Root continued: “Me and Gary were just starting to get a nice little partnership going before the rain came. We’ll have to start again now when we next get the chance to go out and bat.”

He said that with a wry smile. The forecast for the remainder of this match is for even more of the wet stuff.