Craig White completely dominated Yorkshire's batting in a glorious exhibition of sumptuous strokeplay on the first day of the Championship match against Leicestershire at the Scarborough Cricket Festival yesterday.

While wickets crashed around him, White reeled off a series of extra cover drives which were a joy to watch as he dashed to 161 out of a final score of 276.

That gave him 59.33 per cent of the total runs scored in the innings, the third highest percentage in Yorkshire's history and beaten only by Herbert Sutcliffe (61 per cent v Hampshire at Headingley in 1932) and Geoff Boycott (59.48 per cent v Warwickshire at Edgbaston in 1971).

White rode his luck, twice being put down by skipper Vince Wells at first slip on 31 and 84 and then by Ashley Wright at cover on 150, but all in all it was a magnificent effort which contained 26 fours and lasted for 216 deliveries.

With the ball moving around alarmingly on a warm morning, White came in at five for two in the fourth over after Vic Craven had clipped Devon Malcolm to square leg and Matthew Elliott had been bowled pushing forward at Indian paceman Javagal Srinath.

He did not depart until the first over after tea when he tried to turn a full-length ball from Malcolm to long leg and was bowled leg stump.

Although White was quickly into his stride, he received little support at the other end from the other main batsmen and after Chris Taylor and Michael Lumb had fallen to catches behind the wicket off Srinath and Vince Wells, the situation grew even more serious as Malcolm accounted for Gary Fellows and Richard Blakey with consecutive deliveries.

Fellows became another victim for wicketkeeper Neil Burns while Blakey was lbw to an inswinger which curved like a banana.

White had made 57 out of 101 for six at lunch and when Richard Dawson was lbw to a Srinath shooter Yorkshire were 118 for seven and the odds were against them picking up even a single batting bonus point.

But Andy Gray joined White and the pair were appropriately named as a sea fret began to swirl around the North Marine Road ground, causing the umpires to keep holding up play for a few seconds while particularly thick patches lifted.

White's century came from 134 balls with 15 fours and he received sensible support from Gray in an eighth wicket stand of 107 in 29 overs which brought a batting bonus point and took Yorkshire half-way towards a second before Gray was lbw to Wells for 25.

Steven Kirby showed plenty of enterprise himself in putting on 29 with White and then 22 with last man Ryan Sidebottom to bring further respectability to the Yorkshire score.

The mist continued to flood across the ground and it was still around when Leicestershire began their innings and Trevor Ward was lbw shuffling across his stumps to Sidebottom at 17 in the eighth over.

Leicestershire had moved to 32 for one with 6.5 overs remaining when the umpires considered the fret was a threat and ended play for the day.