YORKSHIRE have become the first county cricket club in the country to print their international ticket sales information in two languages - English and Urdu.

Ticket sales for next summer's Test match at Headingley between England and Pakistan from August 4-8 are soaring and Yorkshire have promised to give 50p from every ticket sold before Christmas to the South Asia earthquake appeal.

Already Yorkshire have sold around 12,000 tickets, netting about £400,000, for the first three days of the Test and for the one-day international between England and Sri Lanka at Headingley on July 1.

Now their glossy ticket sales booklet for 2006 will be distributed to 30,000 addresses on their database and the dual-language literature will also be put out on the Yorkshire club's website.

Marketing director Ian Bishop said: "We recognise that we have a very large Pakistani community on our doorstep and we want to give them all the available information about the two internationals at Headingley.

"We are very conscious of the need to improve race relations and we believe this is going some way towards doing that.

"We want everyone from the Pakistani communities in Yorkshire to have full details of the matches and to increase awareness we have also placed an advert in Urdu in an Asian newspaper which has a circulation of around 35,000 in the Bradford area.

"I fully expect ticket sales to double between now and Christmas and I urge anyone who wants to come to either the one-day international or the Test match to get their tickets as soon as possible in order to avoid disappointment.

"Up to three years' ago we had never sold an international ticket on the internet but now between 60-70 per cent of sales are done through on-line bookings."

Meanwhile, Craig White, Yorkshire's captain for the past two seasons, has had a 'cleaning up' operation on his troublesome knee and is confident that he will be able to both bat and bowl next year.

White, who still has to be ratified as captain for next season, stood down from totesport League matches in the second half of last summer, because he was unable to bowl with his sore knee.

"The operation was a success and he will start next season with a clean bill of health," said director of cricket David Byas.

Updated: 11:03 Friday, November 04, 2005