Despite the rain, an entertaining day. Good to be back, see you tomorrow!

Right, time for me to start writing up for the paper. I think we’ll play on here at Derby for another hour or so, clouds permitting. Do chat on BTL.

Aha. Bashir time. Long, long limbs, skip, axel-turn. Sixteen wickets at 38 this season, says Fletch. Durham 60-1.

A wicket for Sonny Baker wraps up the Yorkshire innings, all out for 173. Dom Bess’s 40 not out provided the oomph Yorkshire were desperately looking for. Now what can Coad and Cliff, Chohan and Hill do?

Sam Northeast is the second Kent batter to be out in the eighties today after Crawley, lbw Roland-Jones for 87. Three wickets now for TRJ. Kent 278-5 are the highest scorers of damp day round the grounds.

Everything is unfolding at a fairly pedestrian pace at Derby, like the dreg ends of a long dream. Shoaib Bashir walks from pillar to post with his long strides. Durham 40-1.

Hmmm, not such a good match for Calvin Harrison this time around, as Josh Bohannon plucks ball from air and there’s a first FC wicket for Ben Walkden. Northants 56-2.

It is darkening, quickly, here at Derby. And here comes Nick Potts. Durham 31-1.

The floodlights are on at Durham, and there’s been a wicket at Old Trafford – Vasconcelos lbw Balderson, 13. Northants 56-1. That brings in Calvin Harrison who played so well at this fixture last year – 11 wickets and a sprightly 56.

Randell is bowling with a big white headband and he bows his head as he charges in. Three slips. second slip has hands in his pockets. There is rain in the air. Durham 21-1.

And after all that hanging about, Ben McKinney is back in the dressing room. He just had time for a six over midwicket to wake everyone up before being caught behind off Ben Aitchison. Durham 17-1.

And as play resumes at Derby, Yorkshire tumble to nine down at the Rosebowl.

Notts have scraped into three figures in the big-beef at The Oval, thanks to Patterson-White’s 22 not out. Notts 102-7.

Restart at 4pm at Derby with 40.2 overs theoretically to play.

A whistles and bells standing ovation for Josh Thomas as Shane Snater sends a creeper between bat and pad to tonk the top of off stump. Out for 110. At the other end Henry Nicholls on debut is 52 not out; Somerset 213-3.

They’ve taken an early tea at Grace Road with Leicestershire 71-4 on a truncated day. That Gumbs run out in full.

After the last long weeks of guiltily enjoyed balmy evenings, it is a relief to see a couple of blokes in fleeces, hands in pocket, trudge around a rained-soaked cricket ground. The seagulls are scurrying about, the Derbyshire flag blows, but not much other action to report. A bow to those in the stands who have seen 16 balls in four an a half hours of sitting.

A sixth Yorkshire wicket falls, top-scorer Wharton bowled for 24 by Andrew Neal (not that one). Tumble down the stairs over, Yorkshire can rebuild from 80-6.

Sam Curran’s chances of replacing Ben Stokes in the Test team have been (temporarily) scuppered with a groin injury that will rule him out of the rest of the summer.

Meanwhile, Curran-less Surrey continue to prod Notts who are now 71-6. Martindale the last man out for 13; Verreynne 16 not out.

Things don’t get any better for Yorkshire on their south coast holiday as they resume after the rainbreak, YJB is immediately lbw to Abbot (12-8-6-4) for five. Yorkshire 76-5.

Muyeye flashed briefly but must march away, well caught at second slip after TRJ induces a squeeze. Out comes DBD, whose sister Nadine will be performing at carnival next weekend. Kent 185-3. Northeast 47 not out.

Another inspection at Derby at 3pm, while they’ve taken an early tea at Old Trafford.

Tommy Boorman (41) and Ollie Price (26) are nudging Glos, 88-4, away from disaster at parched Cheltenham. Price, who made that megawatt 253 against Lancs last year, has just signed a two-year contract extension to stay at Bristol.

Here at Derby, the groundstaff are rolling the covers out again, pastry like, as the skies start frowning once more.

Tune into the Middlesex stream to catch Crawley on song, immediately he eyes up something he fancies from Ryan Higgins and wafts to second slip for 81. He turns on his heel and swishes his bat in frustration. Kent 167-2.

As I tap, there is play at Cheltenham (Glos 78-4); Merchant Taylor’s (Kent 162-1); The Oval (Notts 48-5), Taunton (Somerset 170-2) and Southampton ( Yorks 66-4).

There will be an inspection here at 2.30. Just went for a quick circle around the ground. The grass is certainly on the spongey side.

Vegetarian quorn with rice at Derby as the mop up begins. Looks like a lot of water on the covers but the sun is out so fingers crossed. Also delays at Edgbaston, The Oval and still nothing doing at Old Trafford. And rain at Headingley, where they will restart in the Test at 2.30 providing the heavens don’t open again.

“Tanya.” John Starbuck (originally from Nottingham so I dislike anywhere else). “As a corrective to earlier correspondence, hating Leeds is not the only thing a lot of Yorkies can agree on: in South Yorkshire, Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster all hate Sheffield, whose denizens they call ‘Dee-Dahs-. Mind you, the same applies in the West Midlands, where no-one outside Birmingham likes the ‘Yam-Yams’.”

Meanwhile at the Ageas, Wharton and Revis have hauled Yorkshire from 9-3 to the relative uplands of 43-3.

A growing puddle has appeared to the left of the covers. Derbyshire Heritage officer David Griffin says that the ground is going to be dug up and the drainage relaid in the winter, plus new floodlights put in. He also says that the ashes of three of the 1936 Championship winning team are scattered on the ground. And here’s lightning, now thunder, and doomsday rain. Don’t wait up.

Alas, here comes the rain again, huge great drops like weeping exclamation marks. Durham 5 for 0.

Ben Aitchison has the new ball at the racecourse end. Three slips fold their arms and wait. Alex Lees is off the mark with a speedy single.

The weatherhouse swivels- as they come onto the field at Derby, it starts raining at Southampton and The Oval.

At Taunton, Somerset’s Josh Thomas is nudging towards fifty, Somerset 98-2. Jamie Porter has just winkled out Lewis Goldsworthy for 16.

A third catch for Ollie Pope as Haynes nibbles obligingly. Notts 41-5.

Ben Allison is making a mess of Gloucestershire’s scorecard. Bancroft, Hammond and Bracey are all safely in his pocket and Phillips has been bowled by Waite to leave Glos 33-4.

At The Oval, Notts are wading towards lunch at 40-4, with Jack Haynes dropped by Tom Lawes for good measure.

A 12.30 start at Derby, lunch at 1.10pm.

A Derbyshire huddle, and a round of applause. The captains put on their blazers for the toss, which Derbyshire win and will bowl.

Meanwhile at the desertscape of Merchant Taylor’s school, Zak Crawley (17) has lost his opening partner Ben Compton for 13. Kent 40-1.

It’s like a scene from a musical out out in the middle at Derby: measuring tapes, catching practise, rollers, Ben Stokes bowling in a Durham tracksuit. The umpires come out and stare meaningfully at the pitch.

Lancashire, a thoughful lament, from Guy Hornsby.

“Morning Tanya, in the drizzle not of Old Trafford but the M6. Tim Maitland asks the question many of us Lancashire members ask ourselves. Unlike many of the more vocal members from various meetings, I don’t think the cause of the malaise is The Hundred, or white ball cricket in general. The glory days of the 80s and 90s they would love to return to are sadly from a different cricket landscape.

“I do agree with some that, while digging Lancs out of a considerable financial hole, the club has perhaps not focused enough on red ball cricket as it has on (much needed) commercial enterprises. That work has given us a much better financial outlook, but it feels like the rot set in a season or two before relegation. We didn’t future proof the squad, and some who scored tons of runs (Jennings and Bohannon for example) dried up at the wrong time as Dane Vilas left. Our attack was middling and we struggled to get results. The appointment of Dale Benkenstein was a disaster, and he never seemed to have the dressing room. We have - Marcus Harris aside - made poor overseas signings and while Steven Croft has done well we’ve seen a good start to the season tail off and face another season in the lower division.

“But it’s hard to see how we get back up with the current squad, so it’s a dismal time for the club, and will be even more so when Anderson retires. The white ball teams do ok at least. As much as I like him, you’d have to question Mark Chilton’s performance, though the women have done brilliantly last year. For a club with so much history, a decent business model and Hundred money, it’s a very strange place we find ourselves in. It’s not good enough. Some board changes under Dame Sarah Storey, including a new CEO coming in, Richard Kenyon, need to change the narrative.”

Despite Mohammad Abbas playing at Headingley and signing for Derbyshire, in my mind he is always running in for Hampshire in slightly too short trousers. But they don’t need him today – Yorkshire are 19-3, Whiteman and Lyth gone in consecutive Kyle Abbott overs.

There’s something in the water – Will Luxton lbw for 2 (Yorkshire 9-1); Cameron Bancroft caught behind for 9 (Glos 16-1); Tom Lammonby Sam Cooked for 20 (Somerset 36-1). Oh and Notts have lost a third – Joe Clarke for one, caught off Fisher. (Notts 14-3.)

Surrey on the march: the first wicket of the round is Haseeb Hameed in the second over of the morning, the next his opening partner Ben Slater, five balls later. Notts 11-2, a wicket each for Dan Worrall and Matthew Fisher.

Two catches for Ollie Pope who was one of five members of the super-sized England squad to have very sensibly been released to play in the Championship. The others are Shoaib Bashir (Derbyshire), Brydon Carse (Durham), Sam Cook (Essex) and Fisher (Surrey).

There has been an outbreak of sunshine in Derby and there will be a pitch inspection at 11.50am. The groundstaff mop the covers.

And hello Tim Maitland: “It’s been a while. In fact it’s been an eternity, during which time I have come to the inevitable conclusion that all the Hundred does is prove that an endless stream of sixes serves only to make sixes seem less exciting.

”Some of the One Day Cup games were watchable though, weren’t they? I’ll get to the point.

”Coming, as you do, from the wrong side of the Pennines, can you either now or at greater length at a later time, please make sense of what Lancashire are doing in the second division and why, if you believe all the Red Rose propaganda, such a great cricketing county is second from bottom in a division they’ve no business being in?

”As facetious as my approach may seem, I am genuinely interested. Considering how Yorkshire are (nearly always correctly) portrayed as the poster boys for how not to run a county, Lancashire (and indeed Middlesex) seem to be saying “Hold my beer” (or in Middlesex’s case, my Pimms and lemonade).

P.S. Given that (apart from detesting Lancashire, complaining about the weather, beer, pies, Rugby League and claiming that Yorkshire is God’s Own County) hating Leeds is about the only thing that truly unites Yorkshiremen, do you think the genius executives of the Sun TV Network Limited were genuinely surprised that attendances dropped close to 20% after they renamed the Northern Superchargers as Sunrisers Leeds?

Debuts for Henry Nicholls for Somerset, and Hamza Shaikh for Leicestershire, signed from Warwickshire mid season.

Arrive at Derby in teeming rain. Apparently Ben Stokes had a net at 8.30am but it all looks very soggy now.

Over in Leeds, England and Pakistan wade into day two of the Test. Ali Martin was watching yesterday.

Last night I heard a radio programme about an amazing young man called Ben West who, after his beloved younger brother Sam took his own life aged 15, started a suicide prevention website called Reasons to Stay. Strangers submit letters for people struggling with their mental health, which are then checked by clinical professionals. Anyone visiting the website gets a new letter, a new message of hope, each time they refresh. It is there for you if you need a helping hand.