Shan Masood the main man as Yorkshire CCC finally end long winless run in the County Championship

These are heady days for a Yorkshire team that was looking bereft a short time ago.

The catalyst for the transformation is not difficult to spot.

His name is Shan Masood, and it was fitting that the Yorkshire captain was there to help seal a three-wicket triumph against his former club, scoring an unbeaten 95 as Yorkshire chased a nuisance target of 212.

With his high-class batting and serene leadership, the Pakistan batsman, who missed the early season due to international commitments, has dragged the side up by its bootlaces.

Derbyshire’s loss has very much been Yorkshire’s gain as this match, ultimately, proved rather well.

No one should be tempted to get carried away, though.

Yorkshire made horribly heavy weather of winning a fixture that they might have wrapped up inside two days, reducing Derbyshire to 17-4 in their second innings, all of 225 runs behind and apparently irrevocably pinned to the canvas.

But a record fifth-wicket stand against Yorkshire in first-class cricket of 277 between Leus du Plooy, the captain, and Haider Ali transformed the contest and gave Derbyshire – without a victory themselves in this year’s Second Division – the sniff of a heist that would have extended Yorkshire’s winless Championship run to 18 matches.

As it was, that first triumph since the opening game of last season, against Gloucestershire in Bristol, was sealed after 56 minutes on day four, leaving Ottis Gibson, the Yorkshire head coach, suitably relieved.

“It feels great to win a game,” he said.

“It's been a long time coming, but winning is hard and we are a developing team.

“Sometimes we’ve put ourselves in winning situations this year without being able to get over the line, so to have Shan's experience makes all the difference.

"It's been 17 matches in the Championship without a win, but in those 17 games it's not like we have been playing terrible cricket.

“We played some pretty good cricket but not been able to get across the line, so there's a lot of joy in the dressing room and hopefully this is a little bit of validation for the work we have been putting in as a group."

Free entry enticed a fair few into Queen’s Park to witness the last rites on another hot and sunny day, with Yorkshire needing a further 65 runs and Derbyshire a further four wickets when the visitors resumed on 147-6.

That became a further three wickets after just one ball, Dawid Malan sweeping the opening delivery into the hands of short-leg off Mark Watt, the bulky left-arm spinner.

Malan had been unable to bat earlier in the piece due to a groin niggle and his dismissal was the sort of disquieting development that boded ill for the Yorkshire camp.

There followed almost immediately a key moment when Brooke Guest missed a chance to stump Bess when he came down the pitch to Alex Thomson, the off-spinner, the wicketkeeper just a little too slow to react before breaking the stumps with disproportionate force, as though trying to kill an ant with a wooden club.

Thereafter, there were few alarms as neither spinner - Thomsom from the Lake end, Watt from the pavilion side - was able to exert sufficient control despite helpful conditions, allowing Masood and Bess to play positively and fluently.

Bess, in particular, looked to attack and did so rather well when sweeping and cutting Watt for boundaries and then depositing Thomson to the extra-cover rope.

With only 42 first-class appearances and 83 wickets between them, Watt and Thomson are hardly Lock and Laker, and du Plooy was forced to turn to Zak Chappell, the seamer and concussion replacement for Suranga Lakmal, in a failed attempt to stem the runs.

Masood clipped Chappell off his pads for one of 12 boundaries that flowed from his bat during the course of a 112-ball innings, du Plooy then going back to Thomson, whom Bess struck for the winning boundary when he sent a full toss skipping away through mid-wicket. Bess had six boundaries in a run-a-ball 41, his stand with Masood worth 68 from 82 deliveries.

"Credit to ‘Bessy’,” said Gibson. “He's not had the best game with the ball (his figures were 38-1-190-3) but to go into a situation like that with Shan and put together that partnership to get us over the line made all the difference.

"I guess it's a symptom of where we are as a team at the moment that we get ourselves in winning positions and are not able to grab hold of those situations and have a really comfortable win, but we will take this one.”

Yorkshire and their supporters will grab it for all they are worth.

A Championship victory was indeed a long time coming – 423 days, to be precise.