Chris Elstub will be a man with a mission when he opens the bowling for the Bradford and Leeds Universities' Centre of Excellence in the three-day match with Yorkshire which starts at Bradford Park Avenue tomorrow.

The former Spen Victoria paceman, who is now on Yorkshire's books and will be free to play for them again once this game is over, will be trying hard to prevent a century opening stand for the third consecutive match between Scott Richardson and Matthew Wood.

The duo, who look like becoming Yorkshire's regular first wicket pair, added 152 together in the CricInfo Championship encounter against Kent at Headingley a fortnight ago to give the county their best start in two years.

But they did even better at Bath last week by rapping out 179 against Somerset as Yorkshire charged to a mammoth 589 for five declared.

Richardson and Wood are eager to continue the good work but Elstub knows that his best chance of an early recall by Yorkshire is to split the openers as soon as he can and then go on to bag a few more wickets besides.

Yorkshire are fielding a side with a nice blend of youth and experience and an interesting inclusion is off-spinner Andy Gray, an Australian with a British passport who is playing for Scarborough in the Yorkshire League this season.

Gray is being given a trial by Yorkshire and it will be interesting to compare his ability in this match with their other off-spinner, the highly regarded James Dawson who is back after recovering from a broken finger.

Dawson impressed Yorkshire coach Wayne Clark on the pre-season tour of Australia and would have been given early chances ahead of James Middlebrook and Ian Fisher but for his injury which he sustained while doing 12th man duties during Yorkshire's opening match of the season against Kent at Canterbury.

The Centre's batting will be severely tested by a Yorkshire attack which includes capped fast bowlers Gavin Hamilton and Paul Hutchison, both of whom want to do enough to stake a claim for next Monday's Benson and Hedges Cup semi-final match with Gloucestershire at Headingley.

Places are at a premium for that game because Darren Gough will be back from England duty and Craig White and Matthew Hoggard will be trying to push for places in the Ashes series.

Yorkshire left-handers Michael Lumb and Vic Craven are also determined to notch big scores at Bradford to improve their chances of regular first team cricket while Simon Guy is eager to make his mark behind the stumps in the absence of Richard Blakey who is being rested, along with Darren Lehmann.

Yorkshire captain David Byas said: "Everyone in our side will be taking the match very seriously and I will be closely monitoring the form of some of our younger players and assessing the progress they are making.

"The more experienced members of the team know they cannot afford to slack off with the important B&H semi-final match only a few days away and we will certainly not be doing any favours."

Updated: 12:18 Tuesday, June 19, 2001