ANDREW HODD has been earmarked as a potential opener for the first few games of the LV= County Championship this summer should Yorkshire’s top order be hit by early season international call-ups.

Regular openers Adam Lyth and Alex Lees spent the early part of 2015 in South Africa with the England Lions and both have been mentioned as candidates for England’s senior Test tour of the West Indies in April and May.

Yorkshire could have a whole host of players involved in that tour, and they have prepared for every eventuality during their pre-season training programme at Headingley.

Experienced wicketkeeper Hodd is a more than capable batsman, although he has limited experience of opening the batting in first-class cricket, doing that job only once in a university fixture during his days at Sussex. However, batting in the middle order, he will have regularly come across the second new ball during an innings.

A more obvious name in the frame is former England under-19s opener Jonny Tattersall, and director of professional cricket Martyn Moxon has been working closely with both players.

“We have identified a couple of lads so that if we do lose some players to that Caribbean tour, we may need someone to step up at the top of the order,” said coach Jason Gillespie.

“A couple of lads, Jonny Tattersall and Hoddy, have been working really hard specifically with Martyn on their top order batting. If that situation comes up, we’ve prepared for that.

“Hoddy looks in great touch.

We’re huge fans of his. We think he’s a hell of a player. The fact that he’s one of the best keepers in the country helps us as well. We really think that if we needed someone in that top order, he could potentially fulfil a role if we needed him.

“We’ll just have to wait and see how many guys we will lose to that West Indies tour. We’re pretty much guaranteed to lose three I would have thought - Ballance, Root and Plunkett.

“I’ve read reports that Jonathan Trott maybe taken as a spare opener. There’s a bit of an unknown for us, so we just have to prepare in case we do lose more.”

England’s Caribbean tour runs between April 6 and May 5.

Yorkshire play three Championship fixtures in that time.