CHAMPIONS, so it is often said, reserve their very best form for the visits of challengers.

And for the first two sessions of this game at Headingley, this certainly seemed valid as Yorkshire dismissed the current LV= Division One leaders Middlesex for 212 with Jack Brooks taking a season’s best 5-44.

By the close, however, the match was much more evenly balanced after the Middlesex seamers had taken four prime wickets inside the first 16 overs of Yorkshire’s reply to reduce the home side to 52- 4 before the in-form pair of Jack Leaning and Jonny Bairstow had added a further 44 runs in very calm fashion.

Leaning and Bairstow’s coolness was very welcome after Adam Lyth had nicked Toby Roland-Jones to Ollie Rayner when he had made 17 and the out of touch Gary Ballance had been leg before to Tim Murtagh for just a single.

The loss of Alex Lees, also caught by Rayner at slip, and Andrew Gale, lbw for 18, helped to increase suspicions about the Headingley wicket but this pitch, while helpful, did not justify the loss of 14 wickets in the day, a point made clear by the fine innings of 70 played by Middlesex’s Nick Compton.

Yet the first day of this game also offered another illustration of the talent possessed by Brooks. The seamer struck in the fourth over when he had Joe Burns lbw for four and by early afternoon he and Steve Patterson had reduced Middlesex to

92-4.

But the real excitement of the afternoon did not come until off-spinner Glenn Maxwell took the wickets of James Franklin, caught at short leg by Leaning for three, and John Simpson was leg before second ball for nought.

With his side on 119-6, Ollie Rayner launched a counter-attack, hitting five fours before being bowled for 20 when trying to turn the ball to leg.

The wicket of Compton then fell to Brooks, the batsman edging to Leaning at third slip when he had made 70 off 171 balls with nine boundaries

Patterson had Roland-Jones leg before for 11 and Harris, having made 22 and added 24 useful runs for the last wicket with Murtagh, soon hooked Brooks to Ballance at long leg.

Brooks received a standing ovation from the delighted Headingley crowd. Maxwell collected 3-55 and Patterson 2-42.