GARY Ballance added 26 runs to his overnight score of 106 as Yorkshire posted a first-innings total of 406 on the second morning of their County Championship game against Middlesex at Scarborough.

After resuming on 291-5, the first wicket to fall was that of Will Rhodes for 20, the all-rounder’s attempt to pull a delivery from Toby Roland-Jones only succeeding in bottom-edging the ball onto his stumps.

Rhodes fell to the 12th ball of the morning but Ballance and Andy Hodd then added 34 runs in nearly an hour before both Ballance and Azeem Rafiq departed in the space of five balls to left-arm seamer James Franklin.

Ballance, having hit three more fours this morning, chipped a return catch to the bowler when he had made 132 off 262 balls, before Rafiq was caught at the wicket by John Simpson.

Yorkshire tail-enders Steve Patterson and Jack Brooks then joined Hodd in adding 72 valuable runs to their side’s total.

Patterson made 13 in a ninth-wicket stand of 37 and then Brooks, to the delight of the crowd, hit a six off Steven Finn to get off the mark and was 19 not out when wicketkeeper batsman Hodd was caught at slip by Sam Robson for 37.