First-team coach Jason Gillespie believes Azeem Rafiq will prosper without the pressures of being Yorkshire’s stand-in captain for their return to LV= County Championship division two action against Hampshire at the Ageas Bowl tomorrow.

Gillespie has named fellow Australian Phil Jaques as skipper in Andrew Gale’s absence due to his ongoing hip injury despite off-spinner Rafiq winning five completed Twenty20 matches on the bounce in the role.

Rafiq’s success as Yorkshire’s interim leader in the Friends Life t20 helped set up a quarter-final tie against Worcestershire at Headingley, which will be played on Wednesday July 25 at 4.15pm due to television scheduling.

The decision to hand Jaques the captaincy is no great surprise given the difference between Twenty20 and Championship cricket, while 21-year-old Rafiq only broke into Yorkshire’s four-day side in May.

“Knowing the young man that he is, I’m sure Azeem could do the job, and I’m sure he could do it very well,” said Gillespie, who has named on-loan Durham bowler Steve Harmison in a 13-man squad for the trip south.

“We have no doubt about that, but we feel in the best interests of Azeem and the club that we should just let him play. He’s had some wonderful experience captaining in Twenty20, but he’s only just got his spot in the Championship side.

“With the amount of bowling he’ll have to do, and the fact that he’s batting in the middle order, he’ll have a lot of responsibility anyway.

“He’s a big player for us in the second half of the season. He can just concentrate on his cricket. We all know the kind of character Azeem is. He’s going to be helping the captain anyway. It’s just his character, he’s fantastic.

“Phil has had a lot of captaincy experience. As the senior pro, we feel he’ll be very good in that role.”

Yorkshire are third in division two, level on 89 points with second-placed Kent and 32 points behind Derbyshire having played eight of 16 matches and one less than the leaders.

Yorkshire’s last four-day outing was the rain-ruined clash with Glamorgan at Colwyn Bay between June 6 and June 9 when only 34 overs were bowled in the match.

“Our Twenty20 cricket has been exciting to watch,” added Gillespie. “We made a decision in pre-season that we’d give it a really good crack, but Championship cricket is the real priority for us.

“The Hampshire game is very important. We’re sitting equal second, and we need to get some points. The squad we’ve picked we feel is balanced. It gives us plenty of options with bat and ball.”

While Jonny Bairstow has been released from the England one-day squad to play for his county, Gerard Brophy is also in the party as cover.

Anthony McGrath has recovered from a sprained wrist, while Rich Pyrah, who has played Twenty20, is in contention to play his first Championship match since early April after breaking his hand against Kent at Headingley.

Yorkshire squad: Lyth, Root, Jaques (c), McGrath, Ballance, Bairstow (w), Pyrah, Rafiq, Patterson, Harmison, Ashraf, Rashid, Brophy.