DARREN Gough greeted his former team-mates by snatching a wicket with the third ball of the match in an incident packed start to Yorkshire's Championship encounter with Essex at Chelmsford today.

Essex had asked Yorkshire to bat first on a greenish pitch and Gough was positively itching to get hold of the new ball.

In characteristic fashion, the former England strike bowler did not have to wait long to grab the headlines, his third delivery lifting and leaving Matthew Wood who could not remove his bat in time and wicketkeeper James Foster made no mistake with the catch.

The other early news concerned Yorkshire's Australian left-hander, Phil Jaques, who was registered just before the start of play as a temporary replacement for fellow countryman, Ian Harvey, who is suffering a hamstring strain.

Yorkshire received a call from their consultant physiotherapist, Wayne Morton, this morning to say that in his opinion Harvey would be out for at least three weeks and, on hearing the news, director of cricket David Byas went ahead and registered Jaques who was originally here as Darren Lehmann's replacement during Australia's tour of Zimbabwe.

"Phil will now be available for our Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy quarter-final clash with Lancashire on June 15 and at the end of the month he will replace Lehmann again during Australia's home series with Sri Lanka," said Byas.

It was all happening for Jaques who then found himself opening the innings as skipper Craig White decided to bat lower down the order for the first time this season.

After taking a close look at the pitch, Yorkshire felt that they would not require two specialist spinners so they left out leg-spinner Mark Lawson who would have made his first team debut had he been selected.

Lehmann was back in the side, of course, and pacemen Chris Silverwood and Steven Kirby were in Championship action together for the first time since the opening game of the season when Yorkshire beat Essex at Headingley.

With Wood quickly removed from the action, Gough was anxious to bag another scalp and he attempted to soften up new batsman Anthony McGrath with a first ball bouncer, Gough tripping up and falling over after his follow through.

McGrath was then off the mark with an edge through the slips which went for two and the next ball he ran two more, this time turning the ball round the corner on the legside.

Gough shared the attack with the promising Graham Napier but Jaques straight drove him for three and in a later over he got on on to the back foot and slammed him throught the covers for the first boundary of the match.

Yorkshire were more than happy to have Jaques on board because he looked in excellent form and his fine stroke through mid-wicket off Gough would have brought him another four if the damp outfield had not slowed the ball down.

Gough was rested after an opening spell which read 6-0-14-1 and Napier was given another try but Jaques pulled a long hop to the mid-wicket fence.

As the score moved on to 70-1 in the 20th over Essex were just beginning to wonder if they had done the right thing in putting Yorkshire in to bat.

Updated: 14:38 Wednesday, June 02, 2004