Yorkshire pulled off their first Roses win at Headingley since 1992 yesterday - and their most important for many more years than that.

The seven-wicket triumph, completed in mid-afternoon after a hard fought contest, was their sixth win of the season and it kept their lead over Somerset at the top of the CricInfo Championship table to 14 points.

Captain David Byas still refuses to allow dressing room talk of winning the title for the first time since 1968 but with six matches still to play the odds against them achieving their goal are getting ever shorter.

Although Lancashire put up resistance, they were swept aside in the end and Yorkshire reached their 157 target with a minimum of fuss, requiring only 33.5 overs to finish the job.

The three wickets which fell in the chase were all claimed by Yorkshire-born spinner Gary Keedy but there was never any danger of Lancashire pulling off a shock win.

Matthew Wood was in sparkling form, blasting ten boundaries in his 51 but this was snail-like progress compared with what was to come from Darren Lehmann.

The Australian followed up his record first innings Roses score of 252 by smashing everything in sight to hurtle to 48 off a mere 24 deliveries with seven fours and two sixes - both of which came off Keedy.

Lehmann became the first Yorkshire batsman to complete 1,000 runs for the season when he reached ten and he had totted up exactly 300 in the match when he swung wildly at Keedy and was bowled to make his way back to a standing ovation from the admiring fans.

He had dashed up 64 in only ten overs with Anthony McGrath who hit an unbeaten 21 and watched on as Byas hammered 14 runs off a Keedy over to polish off Lancashire.

In the morning, Lancashire's tail had wagged sufficiently for them to stretch out their second innings to 314 with Peter Martin and Spen Victoria's John Wood adding 68 for the ninth wicket before Gary Fellows ended the stand with a direct hit on the stumps to run out Wood for 35.

Keedy was soon caught behind off Craig White to leave Martin stranded on 51 from 79 balls with six fours.

An exultant Byas said afterwards: "This was probably the best Roses win I have ever been involved in and it would have been criminal if we had not succeeded after the sheer quality of Darren Lehmann's record innings.

"But there were other outstanding contributions and Matthew Wood played as well as I have ever seen him play while Darren Gough's innings of 96 was also very important.

"It was a particularly satisfying victory because Lancashire are a good side and fought hard and we did extremely well to make 500-plus after they had won the toss and hit 373."

Asked what he thought of Somerset's challenge, Byas said: "I could''t even tell you what they have scored in their last match, I am not interested.

"It is all about what we do and the others don't matter as long as we are winning. We will concentrate on our own cricket and let Somerset worry about themselves."

Yorkshire are now gearing up for another crucial match tomorrow when they meet Champions Surrey at Heading-ley in a game in which both sides are short of their Test players.

Gough, White and Chris Silverwood all join up with England at Trent Bridge today and their places in Yorkshire's squad will be taken by Farsley's 20-year-old opening batsman Chris Taylor, who is set to make his debut, Gavin Hamilton and young seamer Chris Elstub.

Taylor is on a junior contract with Yorkshire and is preferred to Scott Richardson because Byas said he was in better form with the Seconds at the moment.

If Silverwood is released by England in time he will join the team, but if not then Elstub, who is a member of the Bradford-Leeds Centre of Cricket Excell-ence, should make his first appearance of the season.