The tone of a raw and windy night in which the light remained too bad for conventional cricket was set when the umpires, in dark coats and cowboy hats, emerged like men intending to fix a fence on the high plains of the West. Michael Vaughan and Gerard Brophy made an early mockery of seam bowlers' conditions in the reply during an interlude that set up the match for Anthony McGrath and Darren Gough.

Their immediate onslaught brought 45 runs from the first four overs as Vaughan hit 21 from 12 balls. Though both soon went, the initiative had been seized. But it would still prove a close-run thing.

McGrath, with 46 from 39 balls, had brought the requirement down to 32 from the last 24 balls when Sajid Mahmood claimed both his and Richard Pyrah's wicket, the eighth, in a seventeenth over that cost only two runs. It then took one veteran, Gough to upstage another, Dominic Cork, when, with the aid of four leg-byes, 17 came from the next over. After that, Gough, reaching an unbeaten 20 in nine balls, could claim the winning run with two balls to spare.

Only Mal Loye, earlier, and Gareth Cross, in a frantic final stage in which 29 were plundered from the last two overs, had upset the Yorkshire medium-pacers. Pyrah returned three for 20 in his four overs and held the catch at long-on that removed Loye for 43.

Loye, opening, had faced only 33 of the 85 balls bowled in the innings by the time he fell in the 15th over, such was his partners' problems in rotating the strike. His dismissal, making it 91 for five, came during a crucial three-over period when Yorkshire conceded only 14 runs at precisely the point when Lancashire needed to power on.

Cross's clever improvisation, bringing an unbeaten 42 from 24 balls, recovered some of the ground but their 150 always looked just short. He was helped by Tim Bresnan, who bowled a no-ball at the start of the 19th over that Cross pulled for six, finishing with consecutive fours off Gough from the last three balls of the innings.

Lancashire

L Vincent c Pyrah b Hoggard 3

M B Loye c Pyrah b McGrath 43

*S G Law b Pyrah 23

F du Plessis c Gale b Pyrah 10

S J Croft b Pyrah 2

G D Cross not out 42

K W Hogg b Bresnan 14

D G Cork not out 2

Extras (b 5, lb 3, w 1, nb 2) 11

Total (6 wkts, 20 overs) 150

S I Mahmood, S J Marshall and T C Smith did not bat.

Fall of wickets: 1-8, 2-48, 3-74, 4-83, 5-91, 6-136.

Bowling: Hoggard 3-0-25-1; Bresnan 4-0-32-1; Pyrah 4-0-20-3; Gough 4-0-29-0; Rashid 3-0-22-0; McGrath 2-0-14-1.

Yorkshire

A W Gale b Hogg 0

G L Brophy b Marshall 28

M P Vaughan b Smith 21

A McGrath b Mahmood 46

J A Rudolph st Cross b Du Plessis 16

C R Taylor lbw b Du Plessis 0

T T Bresnan c Smith b Croft 3

A U Rashid not out 5

R M Pyrah c Cork b Mahmood 1

*D Gough not out 20

Extras (b 5, lb 7, w 2)14

Total (8 wkts, 19.4 overs)154

M J Hoggard did not bat.

Fall of wickets: 1-6, 2-47, 3-60, 4-86, 5-86, 6-114, 7-119, 8-121.

Bowling: Hogg 3-0-27-1; Cork 3-0-36-0; Mahmood 4-0-13-2; Smith 3.4-0-21-1; Marshall 2-0-12-1; Croft 2-0-20-1; Du Plessis 2-0-13-2.

Umpires: N L Bainton and J W Holder.