YORKSHIRE’S young guns should use Jack Leaning as inspiration when it comes to trying to nail down a first-team spot in 2015, say two of the club’s most experienced campaigners.

York ace Leaning broke into Yorkshire’s first team last May aged 20 to cover for international absentees, and he held his place through the rest of the season in Championship and one-day cricket.

He scored 465 runs from ten Championship matches, including four half centuries, and 220 runs from eight one-day matches, including a maiden senior hundred against Essex at Scarborough.

Ahead of next summer, Yorkshire are expecting to be hit again by international call-ups.

England have a three-Test match tour of the West Indies through much of April and into early May, clashing with the start of the LV= County Championship campaign, and the champions have a host of players in contention.

It would be no surprise to see Jonny Bairstow, Adam Lyth and Adil Rashid travel alongside Gary Ballance, Liam Plunkett and Joe Root.

And that means the likes of Moin Ashraf, Ben Coad, Karl Carver, Matthew Fisher, Will Rhodes, Dan Hodgson, Josh Shaw, Jonny Tattersall and James Wainman are all fighting for more first-team cricket.

“The young lads have been chomping at the bit,” said four-time Championship winner Ryan Sidebottom, who has been back in pre-season training at Headingley since early November.

“Looking at it now, there are going to be some spots available. They’re training hard and look to be very focused on next season. They’ve got stuck in because I think they realise they may get the chance next year.

“They only have to look at Jack Leaning to realise what can be achieved. He came into the side, was a breath of fresh air, did really well and never looked back. To win the Championship first time around is brilliant.

“That’s what you want, someone like that putting their hand up and contributing massively to the team winning.”

Captain Andrew Gale agreed with Sidebottom. He said: “The young lads have been outstanding. They’ve really put a shift in over the last five or six weeks.

“You never quite know how the young lads are going to step up, but their training has been outstanding. They’ve trained as hard as, if not harder than, the senior lads.

“We’ve only done fitness so far. Their commitment is there with the fitness, but having the right skills is a different thing. By mid-February, we’ll be in a place where we’ll know whether we’ve made the right decision (not to sign some more experienced domestic players).

“I’ve got every confidence that one or two of these lads will come out of the pack and do well.

“Some of the stats in the second team weren’t great last season, and even Jack himself only got one or two second-team hundreds. But when he had to step up to the plate, he got the job done. There’s a carrot there if they want.”