ANTHONY McGrath yesterday hammered out his first century of the season and gave the England selectors a timely reminder that they should keep him in their thoughts next week when they pick their squad for the NatWest Series of one-day internationals.

The batsman held Yorkshire together against Durham at Riverside with a flawless 126 out of a final score of 331 after Craig White had decided to take first use of a straw coloured pitch which had something in it for seam and spin alike.

McGrath has had a raw deal from cricket over the past few months because he surrendered the Yorkshire captaincy in order to concentrate on his batting for England but was not chosen for a single match on the tour of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka before Christmas or Sri Lanka in the New Year.

Now players like Kent's Robert Key and Warwickshire's Ian Bell are rumoured to be higher up England's list of probables than McGrath who has done little wrong since first playing for his country last summer and deserves to remain in the squad.

McGrath set his stall out for a century against Essex at Chelmsford last week but was out for 93. This time he showed even more control as he batted immaculately on an overcast and humid day, playing quality shots all round the wicket and never flinching against the raw pace of Pakistani Shoaib Akhtar.

Then, with only last man Steve Kirby left to partner him, McGrath drove Shoaib to distraction in a cat and mouse game in which he hooked and cut with some outrageous strokes which never allowed the Rawalpindi Express to suppress him until McGrath finally allowed himself too much room and was bowled leg-stump.

His fine innings lasted for 245 deliveries and contained 15 fours, two sixes and a five which came when Paul Collingwood shied at the stumps and missed with the ball racing to the boundary.

Yorkshire already had a sound platform when McGrath came in to bat following an opening stand of 79 in 15 overs between Matthew Wood and Phil Jaques and he never once wavered as the innings went through its highs and lows.

He thumped the country's leading wicket-taker, Mark Davies, over mid-wicket for six with a miscued pull and went to his 50 by on-driving off-spinner Gareth Breese high over the rope but after that he calmed down and played mainly ground strokes until his late blast at Shoaib who bowled five spells throughout the day and deservedly picked up four wickets.

Wood batted vigorously for his 55 from only 64 balls with 11 boundaries before mistiming a pull at Shoaib to be caught at mid-wicket and McGrath received good support from Michael Lumb and, Craig White and Richard Dawson but all got out just when appearing set.

With Chris Silverwood missing the game because of an abscess on a tooth, Sheriff Hutton-based Nick Thornicroft shared the new ball with Kirby in the four overs in which Durham had to bat and in the third of them, Kirby sent back Australian Marcus North - thanks, of course, to a magnificent low catch at mid-wicket by McGrath.

The drama was still not over, however, because White brought on Dawson and the off-spinner had nightwatchman Neil Killeen caught close to the bat by Wood off the final ball of the day.

Updated: 11:03 Wednesday, June 09, 2004