ALL six Yorkshire bowlers got among the wickets against Leicestershire at Grace Road yesterday but the most deserving of them was medium pacer Anthony McGrath, who bowled the longest stint of his career and was rewarded by picking up two of the most important scalps.

Yorkshire's hearts must have sunk when they lost the toss on a featherbed pitch which offered bowlers little assistance and Leicestershire seemed to be taking full advantage of it as Darren Robinson and Darren Maddy put on 62 for the first wicket.

But Yorkshire kept on plugging away and nobody worked harder than McGrath to prise out Leicestershire for 278 in the closing moments of the day.

McGrath made a double breakthrough during a 16-over spell in the afternoon when he first trapped Maddy lbw for 53 from 152 balls with seven fours to make Leicestershire 151-3 and then bowled Aftab Habib for 41.

He deserved more wickets but had Claude Henderson dropped at second slip by Tim Bresnan before seeing David Masters find a narrow gap between two slip fielders.

Even when Yorkshire took the new ball at 253-8 to polish off the tail they kept McGrath on for a short while and at the close of the innings he had sent down a total of 26 overs, the most he has ever bowled in a day.

Deon Kruis emerged as Yorkshire's chief wicket-taker with three dismissals and there were two for Bresnan who also gave little away.

It was a heartening, businesslike performance by Yorkshire but Leicestershire's general lack of enterprise must have been a big disappointment for their captain, Hylton Ackerman, who came in at the fall of Maddy's wicket and was still there at the end with a faultless 85 from 129 balls off which he thumped 11 fours.

The one bowler who seemed destined not to get a wicket was Matthew Hoggard, who was searching for his 400th dismissal in first class cricket but the England man eventually reached the landmark by bowling last man Charl Willoughby.

Yorkshire had appeared to be in for a hard time of it as Robinson and Maddy quietly settled in but in the 21st over Bresnan found some extra bounce to have Robinson caught behind. Dinesh Mongia fell lbw to his first ball from Ian Harvey and after McGrath had broken the third wicket stand of 88 between Maddy and Habib only Ackerman held things up for any length of time.

Updated: 11:26 Thursday, May 12, 2005