Yorkshire today went into their opening Frizzell County Championship match against Surrey at Headingley with senior professional Richard Blakey as the newly appointed vice-captain.

The decision to hand the job to the 35-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman was confirmed by skipper Darren Lehmann.

Yorkshire had previously indicated they would take their time over appointing a vice-captain but in letting the experienced Blakey take on the role it means that they will not be plunged into uncertainty whenever Lehmann is not around.

The Australian is due to be away for a couple of weeks in June for his country's hosting of three one-day internationals against Pakistan and he will miss the last month of the domestic season because of Australia's scheduled tour of Pakistan in late August.

Lehmann and coach Wayne Clark still intend to groom a younger player to take over the captaincy in due course but they need to try to find someone who is unlikely to be with England for most of the time.

Blakey, who made his Yorkshire debut way back in 1985, said: "I was delighted to be made vice-captain and I am looking forward to doing the job whenever required."

Clark meanwhile stressed that Yorkshire could not rest on their laurels after winning the championship but needed to improve in all areas.

"We are the number one county now and all the other teams will be trying even harder than before to knock us back," he said.

"We must improve both individually and as a team by ten per cent to retain the championship and in one-day games we need to do 50 per cent better than last season when we were very disappointing."

Clark said he believed part of his role with Yorkshire was to produce cricketers for England and he thought the winning of trophies was secondary to developing players.

But he pledged: "We will play positive and entertaining cricket and if we also win a trophy so well and good."

Updated: 11:50 Wednesday, April 24, 2002