Lyth building bright future for Yorkshire

There is a different view to be had of Headingley now, with the five-storey Carnegie Pavilion open for business. The £21 million structure, clad in panels of triangular green glass, gives the ground an architectural focal point it previously lacked, and a new perspective on the cricket, looking across towards the two-sided football stand, which somehow looks less shabby from a distance.

The international press box, on the fourth floor, offers a commanding view, even if the evidence previously weighed up from behind the arm at the football stand end must now be assessed from third man at the other. Essentially, however, only the angles are different. Yorkshire still look like title contenders.

At times, batting looked like hard work, in which respect it was a highly satisfactory day for them. Adam Lyth, their leading runscorer, lacked the fluency that has characterised much of his play this season but still made 84, becoming the first batsman in the country to score 1,000 first-class runs this summer when he reached 18. Gerard Brophy finished unbeaten on 92 and there was a half-century for Anthony McGrath, who has made scores of 55 or higher in 10 of his last 11 first-class innings. Yorkshire will want 400 or more against an opponent notably weak in batting but, on a pitch likely to become trickier, anything above 350 will test Warwickshire's resolve.

Already, the bounce is inconsistent. The odd ball has popped up but others have kept low, as Jonathan Bairstow can confirm after he was out to a delivery from Steffan Piolet, the former Sussex all-rounder making his Championship debut, that scarcely left the ground.

Warwickshire have lost six of their nine Championship matches and, without Jonathan Trott or Ian Bell, will struggle to turn the tide in this one. Yet they bowled well at times without a lot of luck. Rikki Clarke could have had Lyth on 42 when a leading edge flew just short of mid-off and should have had him on 81 when Darren Maddy spilled a chance at slip. McGrath escaped on 41 when he edged Piolet to second slip, where Clarke probably should have done better.

Such luck as there was tended to fall to Neil Carter, the left-armer, who dismissed McGrath, caught at first slip off a slanted delivery, and Lyth, leg before to a swinging, full-length ball, in the space of 10 deliveries mid-afternoon, the only point in the day in which Warwickshire had the upper hand before Brophy joined Bairstow to rebuild.