WHILE Michael Vaughan, Darren Gough and Anthony McGrath may all be battling it out for England in the second Test at Lord's next week, another trio of Yorkshire players will be keeping the home flag flying, writes David Warner.

They will be playing for England Under-19s in the first Vodafone Youth Test against South Africa Under-19s at Headingley, starting on Friday.

Fast bowler Tim Bresnan, from Pontefract, has already made quite a name for himself at Yorkshire first team level, while both Menston-born Joe Sayers and Liversedge-born Mark Lawson have got promising futures ahead of them.

Bresnan, 18, made his Yorkshire debut in the National League against Kent at Headingley in 2001 at the age of 16 years and 102 days, making him the county's youngest player since Paul Jarvis in 1981.

Since then he has turned in several reliable performances in one-day matches and in three Championship outings this season has done enough to suggest that he will develop into a fully fledged Test cricketer.

The only downside to Bresnan's latest Under-19s call-up is that it leaves him unavailable for Yorkshire during the series of three Tests and three one-day internationals against South Africa during the latter part of the summer.

If Steven Kirby, Chris Silverwood or Ryan Sidebottom should break down while Matthew Hoggard is still out injured, Bresnan would otherwise be an automatic replacement.

Sayers, the 19-year-old left-handed opening bat, would almost certainly have a Yorkshire first team debut to his name by now if he were not at Oxford University and captain of cricket.

He is already considered one of the country's rising young stars and it seems as if he will be available full time for Yorkshire either at the beginning of the 2004 season or the following year.

Lawson, who played Bradford League cricket for Farsley before joining the Academy, is an up and coming leg-spinner and how marvellous it would be if the 17-year-old goes on developing well enough to represent Yorkshire and England.

All three of the lads were in the England Under-19s team which gave such a splendid account of themselves in Australia last winter when they came desperately close to winning the Test series. They were level pegging at 1-1 and in the final match were beaten by just 15 runs after Lawson and David Stiff - another of the six Yorkshire players in the party - had almost turned the tables with a thrilling last wicket partnership.

Nottinghamshire's Bilal Shafayat retains the captaincy for the forthcoming series and also in the squad of 12 is Middlesbrough-born Liam Plunkett who hit the headlines by grabbing match figures of 7-74 at Headingley last month to bring Durham victory against his native county.

Updated: 10:47 Saturday, July 26, 2003