Yorkshire beat Northamptonshire to pick up 19 points and go top of the CricInfo Championship table at Headingley yesterday, but victory was not achieved with the ease that they had expected.

Having avoided the innings defeat, Northants stretched out their second innings to 255 which left Yorkshire to make 77 with a full day and a session to spare.

In murky light, they got into big trouble against young pace bowler John Blain who claimed career-best figures of four for 34 and they made it with only four wickets to spare.

Northants would probably have managed an even bigger score but for two destructive bursts by Matthew Hoggard who celebrated his inclusion in the Test squad by capturing five for 82.

In his first spell of the day he had Mike Hussey and Jeff Cook both caught behind off consecutive balls and in his next over he bowled Russell Warren.

Later on, Hoggard returned to make further inroads by knocking back the stumps of David Ripley and Blain with dynamic deliveries.

Top-scorer for Northants was opener Mal Loye who reached his half-century in Michael Vaughan's first over before the next ball lifted off a length and he gloved it to slip.

Tony Penberthy (45), Kevin Innes (40) and Graeme Swann all made life difficult for Yorkshire by refusing to give in.

Yorkshire got into trouble in Blain's first over when he knocked back Scott Richardson's middle stump with a yorker before bowling Matthew Wood with a similar delivery. Vaughan and Craig White both departed quickly as Yorkshire dipped to 43 for four and it was left to skipper David Byas and Michael Lumb to calm things down.

They had taken Yorkshire to within four runs of victory when Lumb was trapped lbw by Penberthy and Blain struck again by bowling Gary Fellows, leaving Richard Blakey to hit the winning run.

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