Weather may rain on Yorkshire's parade

If you believe the forecasters, rain is set to severely disrupt tomorrow's third day of this LV= County Championship match.

Hampshire closed today’s second day on 116-2 from 29 overs, still 416 behind the visiting side’s mammoth 532.

And, although Yorkshire may not have bowled quite as well as they would have liked after tea on a slow and flat pitch, they still have the clear advantage as they search for a third win of the campaign.

“We’re disappointed that we let them get so many runs,” said centurion Anthony McGrath. “We didn’t bowl as tightly as we wanted, and we’ll have to address that.

“But we’re still confident of taking 18 wickets. We feel that if we can get some pressure, we can take wickets quickly on this wicket.”

Ryan Sidebottom and David Wainwright had openers Liam Dawson and Jimmy Adams caught behind by Gerard Brophy before Michael Carberry and Neil McKenzie counter-attacked well.

Earlier, Yorkshire were bowled out on the stroke of tea as leg-spinner Imran Tahir took 6-132.

It was an impressive batting performance, although tinged with a bit of frustration from beyond the boundary as they only scored 121 in 32.2 overs in the afternoon session when the accelerator should have been pressed.

McGrath’s departure for 115 off 296 balls just after lunch did not help, and neither did Tahir, who claimed the wickets of Brophy for 53, Adil Radhid, Ajmal Shahzad and Wainwright.

“We just found it hard to force the pace,” said McGrath, who shared 157 for the fourth wicket with Gary Ballance.

“We had 550 in mind to get them looking at 400 for the follow-on, and it was a good effort by everyone.

“That was something like we can bat. It was all about partnerships, and we’ve not been good at that this year.”

Ballance batted confidently to record a county best 76 off 128 balls.

l Bradfordian Moin Ashraf has been called up to an England development side for a one-day game against Sri Lanka A at Old Trafford on Monday.