Anthony McGrath says “keeping it simple” has been the key to his success in Twenty20 cricket.

The former Yorkshire skipper is one of only two White Rose players to have broken the 1,000 career runs barrier in the shortest form of the game, with Jacques Rudolph being the other.

The 34-year-old batsman even amassed 392 runs at an average of 56 from nine matches in 2008, leaving him the country’s second highest run-scorer that season.

“There are a number of theories around about doing it this way or that way, but I’ve just tried to make sure I play my own game,” he explained.

“I’m not a big sweeper or reverse sweeper, I just try to rotate the strike by getting the ones and twos. I’m a pretty strong guy, and I try to find the boundary when I can. There is no real secret, it’s just about keeping it simple.”

McGrath returns to the Kensington Oval in Barbados today, where he watched on during an unsuccessful one-day international tour of the Caribbean with England in 2004. He failed to play a single game on the seven-fixture tour.

Yorkshire face a University of the West Indies XI this afternoon (UK time) in their opening match of the Barbados Cricket Twenty20 Cup. Should the Tykes win, they will go through to Finals Day tomorrow.

McGrath, who hit 72 in Yorkshire’s two-day match against Derbyshire on Thursday, continued: “There’s a final to play for, and we want to be in it to win it. It will be good preparation for our season.

“There are 16 games in Twenty20 this season, and we won’t have a lot of practice time when we get home. We’ve got to use the opportunity out here as well as we can.”

North Division rivals Lancashire and Derbyshire are also involved at Kensington this weekend, as are 2008 Twenty20 Cup semi-finalists Essex.

McGrath added: “We’ve had a couple of pre-seasons in Dubai where other counties have been there. When you have that level of competition, you obviously want to win because you can take the bragging rights into the season.”

While McGrath retired out on the second day against Derbyshire on Thursday, Adil Rashid hit five fours and four sixes on the way to an entertaining 69 not out as Yorkshire closed the match on 301-6.