Tea Report: Yorkshire 217-6 (95 overs) v Nottinghamshire

Tea on the second day (Yorkshire won toss)

This match always had the potential to be an intriguing battle, both because of the personalities involved and because, as the only counties with a win from the first round of Championship matches, they are the in-form teams of the early season.

So far, despite the mauling it took from the weather on Wednesday, it is living up to expectations, and after a morning that was squarely Nottinghamshire's, the afternoon has belonged to Yorkshire, who would have gone to tea well pleased with themselves had they not lost a wicket with the last ball of the session.

Jacques Rudolph and Gerard Brophy had done a splendid job rebuilding the Yorkshire first innings and looked to have negotiated the afternoon session successfully until Brophy went to drive a flighted ball from England off-spinner Graeme Swann but missed and was bowled.

Given that Yorkshire chose to bat first, their total is not, on the face of it, particularly impressive. Yet it represents a worthy fightback from 111-5 before lunch, after the dismissal of England captain Michael Vaughan had sparked the loss of three wickets for 15 runs, all of them to the emerging Stuart Broad.

It was a gutsy effort from Rudolph and Brophy, whose stand was worth 106 runs and included a half-century for each of them, with eight boundaries from the latter. Nottinghamshire have continued to bowl, for the most part, with an accuracy that has rarely faltered, no one more so than Ryan Sidebottom, whose 24 overs - half of them maidens - have conceded a meagre 45 runs.

The shaggy-mopped England left-armer had every reason to feel frustrated after beating the bat time and again. He clearly felt he should have had Rudolph's wicket, yet the South African carefully avoided risks, his measured progress taking him to 55 at tea after almost three and a half hours at the crease.