YORKSHIRE comfortably defended a total of 296-9 to maintain a winning start to their Royal London one-day Cup campaign by seeing off Lancashire at Headingley.

The White Rose have gone one up in this season’s Roses battle courtesy of a 79-run win with 6.4 overs remaining.

But, more importantly, they have won their second successive 50-over match to leave themselves well placed for the knockout stages even at this early stage.

Peter Handscomb and Gary Ballance were key to a recovery from 87-3 in good batting conditions.

They hit 86 and 85, sharing in a fourth-wicket stand of 143 in 20 overs, before the visitors lost wickets at regular intervals and slipped to 217 all out.

Leg-spinner Adil Rashid was particularly impressive for his 2-34 from 10 overs, while fellow spinner Azeem Rafiq claimed 4-47 from 9.2.

Yorkshire were not made to pay for a late collapse of some significance with the bat.

After the Handscomb and Ballance alliance, a Yorkshire record for the fourth wicket in Roses List A cricket, the innings subsided from 230-3 in the 38th over.

They lost six wickets for 52 runs, including their last five for just 20 in 27 balls, as the Lightning forced their way back into the contest.

Former England limited overs spinner Stephen Parry claimed three of them, including Ballance lbw reverse sweeping.

Handscomb’s dismissal sparked the slide.

After hitting seamer Luke Procter for two sixes, a four and a two off the first four balls of the 38th over, he chanced his arm again and found Jimmy Anderson at deep mid-wicket.

In hindsight, the Australian will no doubt be frustrated at not taking the safe option. The same could be said for Ballance.

Mind you, had Ballance got four and Handscomb six, we would no doubt be saying ‘great batting’.

But, even without them, there should have been enough batting lower down the order to make the most of their good work. Thankfully, it did not prove costly.

The game had started with Yorkshire inserted under murky skies.

They lost Jonny Bairstow and Adam Lyth caught behind for 28 and 30 before Joe Root holed out to point.

All three wickets fell to Lancashire’s overseas all-rounder Ryan McLaren as the score fell to 87-3 in the 18th.

Ironically, Handscomb and Ballance had hardly taken a risk during their controlled but positive partnership until the former’s dismissal. Sixty four then runs came off the last 12.

Lancashire would have been buoyant at the break.

But Yorkshire quickly reasserted their authority with the early wickets of Procter and Haseeb Hameed as they slipped to 42-2 inside nine overs.

Procter chopped on to Bresnan before Hameed, dropped down to bat at three despite 88 on one-day debut on Friday, chipped Matt Fisher to mid-on.

Alex Davies made 43, Karl Brown 34 and Liam Livingstone 32, but all failed to go on.

Davies was lbw to a Rashid, the first of two wicket with googlies, before Brown slapped Rafiq to mid-off and Livingstone was bowled by Rashid as the score slipped to 133-5 in the 29th.

From then, it was Yorkshire’s game, with Rafiq claiming three of the last five wickets in front of a crowd of 4,865.

Yorkshire, who fielded superbly, face Durham at Headingley on Wednesday.