Middlesex and Yorkshire, second and third in Division Two, will head into the final three games of the Vitality County Championship season separated by just one point, after they put the finishing touches on a high-scoring draw on day four at Headingley yesterday.
The promotion rivals will battle it out with leaders Sussex for two top-flight places in 2025.
Middlesex started the final day on 441-5 in their first-innings reply to Yorkshire’s 601 for six declared.
They reached the follow-on target of 452 comfortably but were bowled out for 522 in the closing stages of the morning.
Former England off-spinner Dom Bess finished with 7-179 from a marathon 70.4 overs, while in-form Ryan Higgins completed an excellent 155 off 259 balls.
Yorkshire’s second innings began shortly before lunch, with a lead of 79, and they reached 150-2 from 35 overs when bad light stopped play at 4.10pm.
Opener Adam Lyth made 62 and James Wharton was 50 not out.
Yorkshire took 13 points from this 11th round fixture and Middlesex 11.
The reason Yorkshire edged the game on points, and thus closed the gap in the table to their visitors was their mammoth first innings total.
Lyth (61) and Wharton (40) batted well in that innings too, but it was the sensational efforts of Jonny Bairstow (160) and George Hill (169no) which propelled them above the 600 mark.
Bess chipped in with the bat too, making an unbeaten 60 as he and Hill put on an unbroken 121 for the seventh wicket.
Hill had earlier added an incredible 238 for the sixth with Bairstow.
While Bess was the standout Yorkshire performer when they bowled, opening bowler Ben Coad deserves a mention, taking an impressive 3-54 from his 14 overs.
Aside from the wickets, the stand out statistic from the Yorkshire bowling effort was that Bess and his fellow spinner Dan Moriarty sent down an extraordinary 132 overs between them.
Yorkshire travel to fourth-placed Leicestershire for their Championship game, which begins on Monday, September 9.
The hosts have an outside chance of promotion themselves, but a Yorkshire away win would ensure promotion becomes solely a three-horse race.
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