HARRY Brook and Jack Leaning’s half-centuries couldn’t prevent Hampshire and Yorkshire from a dour draw during the day-night Specsavers County Championship match at the Ageas Bowl.

The pair made sure Yorkshire avoided any chance of losing with a 108-run stand, which stretched over 38 overs, as they both chalked up milestones.

Yorkshire and Hampshire both move above Lancashire into fifth placed of the Division One table as they moved level on points – the former taking 10 points to Hampshire’s 11 from the match.

Yorkshire had started the day with a slender two run deficit, with two wickets intact – with key batsmen Gary Ballance and Cheteshwar Pujara at the crease.

But both departed within the first hour to spark Hampshire’s hopes of starting a collapse, and possibly a route to victory.

The pair had added exactly 50, having been joined the previous night, before Ballance edged on loan off-spinner Ollie Rayner behind to Tom Alsop.

The England middle-order batsman had only managed to add three runs to his overnight score in 14 afternoon overs.

An over later Indian Test man Pujara was bowled between bat and pad by Ian Holland, the American born Australian’s first wicket of the season.

Just as Yorkshire were staring at a slump, Brook and Leaning came together for the fifth wicket to take the game back towards a stalemate.

Brook was the more aggressive and actively sought the bad ball to drill towards the boundary, while Leaning set in for the long haul.

The completely soft first pink ball offered little chance to bowlers, while making it almost impossible for the batsmen to get value for their shots.

Brook accelerated from 35 to his half century in a single Holland over – caressing a quartet of boundaries through the off-side – with the milestone shot his 68th delivery.

The 19-year-old had early scored 79 in the first innings to prove his talent as one of the most exciting young players on the circuit.

The new ball, taken with a minimum 53 scheduled overs remaining, also failed to take effect as Dale Steyn and Fidel Edwards struggled to get anything out of it the ball or slow pitch.

Brook fell in freak circumstances as he was run out at the non-strikers end, after Gareth Berg had pushed Leaning’s straight drive into the stumps.

But Leaning continued and completed a second half century of the season in an epic 174 balls.

Jonny Tattersall reached 22 before he was bowled by Rayner – the debutant ending with figures of four for 54.

When Steven Patterson and James Vince eventually shook hands at 7.50pm, Leaning had crawled to 54 from 191 balls – with Yorkshire ending 170 runs in front.

Yorkshire head coach Andrew Gale said: “I am pretty pleased it was a good solid draw.

"I thought the pitch got flatter as the game went on but you still have to bat well going into the final day.

“Our batting has come under a lot of scrutiny recently and I thought we showed some proper bottle and proper fight.

“If we can take some of that form and confidence going forward then we will always have a chance.

“I thought Harry in particular batted really well and then Leaning steadied the ship really well for a couple of hours.

“We have spoken at length about Jack. We know he is a great player but we want him to make those senior player contributions – which he did today.”