Picture by Harry Trump/Getty Images. James Wharton celebrates reaching his fifty today.
James Wharton says Yorkshire were delighted with their day three work at Taunton today, the recently-capped batter contributing a fine 92 to a very useful 251-lead with one wicket remaining.
The White Rose head into day four at the Cooper Associates County Ground with every chance of a victory having advanced their second innings from 13-0 overnight to 365-9 at close.
They wiped off the deficit which stood at 99 this morning, with Joe Root’s 64, Dom Bess’s 40 and Jhye Richardson’s unbeaten 48 standing out.
Yorkshire have added 79 and counting for the last two wickets against the early-season pacesetters, with Bess, Richardson and last-man Jack White contributing.
Wharton said: “We were just talking then, if you’d have said we’d be 250 ahead with a wicket left at close, we’d have bitten your hand off for it.
“Being 100 and whatever we were behind, we’re pretty happy with that.
“A few balls have spun. The one that got Logan obviously spun quite a bit, and we’ve seen a few puffs of dust and whatnot.
“Look, we’ve got a great bowling attack, and we’ve got a great spinner in Bessy and golden arm Rooty. So we’re coming raring to go tomorrow.”
This was Wharton’s best score of the season so far, and he shared 123 for the third wicket either side of lunch with England star Root.
“I’ve been pretty rubbish, to be fair, at the start of the season,” he continued. “So it’s nice to contribute, but also disappointing not to make it a big one and really help us push on.
“It’s obviously frustrating that it’s taken four games to get to the point where we really show what we can do with the ball and then also show a bit of fight with the bat to get ourselves in with a chance in this game.
“But, if this is the sort of kick-start to our season that we need, hopefully it continues for a long time.”
And on sharing his century stand with Root, Wharton added: “He’s the GOAT, isn’t he.
“It’s unbelievable batting with him. The way he talks, he plans everything out almost. He knows what’s going to happen before it’s happened.
“The way he just sort of kept me ticking along batting with him – because he’s so busy, it rubs off on other people. It certainly felt like it did for me today. He played, obviously, unbelievably well again.
“And Bessy played beautifully as well, Jhye too, and Jack was just a barn door.
“It’s put us in a really nice position for tomorrow.”