Kuldeep Yadav's career-best 10 for 120 sweeps Essex aside as Yorkshire win by an innings

Kuldeep Yadav took the first ten-wicket haul of his first-class career as Yorkshire beat Essex by an innings and 106 runs at Headingley

The India left-arm wrist spinner claimed 4 for 70 in Essex's first innings and 6 for 50 in the second for match figures of 10 for 120, the best of his first-class career, as the County Championship Division One match finished inside three days.

Yorkshire won the toss, batted and made 390. Essex were dismissed for 171 in reply and, asked to follow on 219 behind, lasted 40 overs for 113.

The 22 points move Yorkshire clear of the relegation places with two rounds of the season left. Essex, beaten for the sixth time, travel to title-chasing Warwickshire at Chelmsford next week.

A first ten-wicket haul in first-class cricket

Kuldeep took the first three wickets to fall in Essex's first innings, removing Paul Walter, the captain Tom Westley and Charlie Allison, before returning to bowl Mitchell Killeen.

Speaking to Yorkshire Cricket TV, he said: "I started, and my first couple of balls were really good, and then I tried to mix it up with my variations. I thought the ball which I bowled to Walter was a very good one, slid on and a bit quicker through the air. Then Westley's ball was my ball of the day."

The six-wicket return in the second innings was also a career best, and the match figures gave him a ten-for in first-class cricket for the first time.

Essex fold twice on a used pitch

The surface was the one used for the recent England–Pakistan Test at Headingley, and Essex were without their own frontline spinner, Simon Harmer.

Following on, they lost Dean Elgar and Westley to George Hill inside nine overs. Kuldeep then struck twice in two balls before lunch — Allison chipped to short mid-on and Matt Critchley was bowled through the gate — to leave Essex 14 for 4 after 12 overs.

He missed out on the hat-trick but had Luc Benkenstein caught at first slip with the score 26. When he bowled Zaman Akhter, who offered no shot to a delivery that turned sharply, Essex were 84 for 8, and Kuldeep finished the innings off himself.

Westley accepts Essex were outplayed

"They outplayed us in every single department, and we've had another extremely poor game, no poorer than myself," Westley said after the defeat.

The Essex captain pointed to the toss and to the missing Harmer: "We knew it was going to spin, and they knew we didn't have Simon Harmer and they had a world-class spinner."

He added: "Yadav and George Hill bowled exceptionally well. Getting off to two poor starts in both innings, you're never going to come back from that."

Critchley, who took 5 for 85 with his leg-spin in Yorkshire's innings, had made the same point a day earlier: "You don't bowl spin for India if you aren't one of the best in the world, so he bowled nicely there and we had a tough little period either side of tea."

Runs at number nine as well

Kuldeep's contribution was not confined to his bowling. Batting at No. 9, he made 36 from 94 balls and added 83 for the eighth wicket with Dom Bess, whose unbeaten 80 anchored the Yorkshire innings.

Essex's resistance came from George Bell, on loan from Lancashire, who made 64 not out in the first innings and shared 68 for the eighth wicket with Akhter before the follow-on was enforced.

A timely return to form for an out-of-favour spinner

It was Kuldeep's first five-wicket haul in first-class cricket in almost a year, his previous one being 5 for 82 against West Indies in October 2025.

He had not bowled at all in his first Championship appearance for Yorkshire, and the county stint follows a lean spell for India: he took one wicket in the first Test in Sri Lanka and missed the second with a viral fever.

Competition has hardened in the meantime. Ravindra Jadeja remains India's first-choice spinner, and Manav Suthar claimed a ten-wicket haul in Galle in only his second Test.

India play two Tests in New Zealand later this year, and Kuldeep has three days of evidence to put in front of the selectors.

Scorecard: Yorkshire 390 (118 overs) beat Essex 171 (69.4 overs) and 113 (40 overs) by an innings and 106 runs at Headingley, Kuldeep Yadav taking 4 for 70 and 6 for 50.

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