England put a lot of time into selecting their various tour squads this week but they may still have missed a trick by not including Yorkshire captain Anthony McGrath in the Test party for Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

McGrath has earned a place in the squad for the one-day internationals which are to be played in both countries, yet it is his Championship form which has come on in leaps and bounds for Yorkshire in recent weeks, while his one-day record has stayed quite ordinary.

It came as a big surprise all round when McGrath got the England call for the two Tests against Zimbabwe in the spring and he could hardly have fared better, hitting 69 on his debut at Lord's - where he also bagged 3-16 in six overs - and 81 at Chester-le-Street, England winning by an innings in both matches.

McGrath then helped England to success in the three-match one-day series against Pakistan and the NatWest Triangular tournament, which followed but his form was patchy.

He never really got going in the first two Tests against South Africa and lost his place rather too soon for some but on his return to Yorkshire he consistently showed a maturity and confidence which had sprung from becoming an England player.

His anguish was clear for all to see when he just missed out on a first innings century against Glamorgan at Colwyn Bay, but he hit the target second time around with a brilliant display of batting which brought him 127 not out and saved the match for Yorkshire.

Then against Somerset at Headingley, he atoned for a first innings duck by hammering out an unbeaten 67 which was unusual for its ultra-aggressive nature. It hurried Yorkshire to a nine-wicket win and kept them in the Championship race.

In the National League, however, McGrath has failed to make any impression at all and when he was dismissed for 13 against Essex at Chelmsford on Wednesday it left him with 122 runs from nine innings with a top score of 41 in the first match of the season.

On the other hand, McGrath gives every appearance of being a Test batsman at the moment but he is not going to be so again for quite a while.

Fingers crossed, then, that he batters the bowling in the one-day internationals and stays among the favourites for a place in the World Cup squad in 2007.

While McGrath is going to have to do well on one front, Matthew Hoggard will have to fire on all cylinders on two following his inclusion in both of the squads.

Hoggard was already struggling at international level when he sustained his cartilage injury at the end of May and he now needs to re-discover the menace which served him so well until England's tour of Australia last winter when he lost his place.

To do so means a lot of hard work in difficult conditions in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka but his career-best 7-49 against Somerset the other week will have given him a fresh appetite for the big time.

Darren Gough made plenty of noise when he found he was not included in the one-day squad but his one-day figures since announcing his retirement from Test cricket hardly suggest he is the bowler of old.

In the last four National League matches, Gough has bowled a full quota of 36 overs and taken four wickets at an average of 34.75 runs apiece. Hoggard has bowled an identical number of overs for seven wickets, each costing him 21.85 runs.

In half a dozen Championship games this season up to the current match at Worcester, Gough has claimed 17 wickets at a cost of 32.41 runs apiece compared to Steve Kirby's 59 at 25.47, Chris Silverwood's 37 at 26.05, Ryan Sidebottom's 35 at 20.28 and Matthew Hoggard's 13 at 24.84.

It is quite natural for an old campaigner like Gough to feel disappointed by his non-selection but others who have missed out are just as entitled to be upset.

Hail the heart and soul man

Yorkshire coach Kevin Sharp has enjoyed a 'rare luxury' over the past week or so, something which he has not experienced since taking on the top job with his native county at the beginning of the year.

Starting with Sunday's game at Worcester where Phoenix beat Royals by seven wickets, Sharp had all five of his front-line bowlers fit and available for selection.

It meant Sharp and skipper Anthony McGrath were able to put their heads together and pick and choose, their final decision being that Darren Gough, Matthew Hoggard and Ryan Sidebottom would spearhead the attack, with Chris Silverwood and Steve Kirby being omitted.

They decided on the same formula against Essex Eagles at Chelmsford on Wednesday but on this occasion they were shown to be a front-line bowler short and Phoenix were consumed by their own flames and relegated.

Sharp's cheery personality and sensitive nature mean that he will always find it an onerous task having to tell a player he has been sidelined but it is something which goes with the job and he knows that it is far better to have a surplus of riches rather than very few resources at all.

The 44-year-old left-hander, who batted for Yorkshire from 1976-1990 and scored 8,426 first-class runs and 4,693 one-day runs on the way, was 'thrilled to bits' when he came to Headingley in January after spending the previous two years at Bradford-Leeds Universities' Centre of Excellence, where he was director of cricket.

"Ever since I left Yorkshire I have worked as a coach and step by step I have been moving towards fulfilling my ambition of returning to first-class cricket and to Yorkshire," he said at the time.

Nobody who gets deeply involved in Yorkshire cricket, whatever his job, has an easy ride and Sharp can vouch for that after a first season which has seen him pitched into the rough and tumble of the county game.

But he's stuck in there well and has kept smiling and if Yorkshire can defy the odds and gain promotion to the First Division of the Championship at the first time of asking, Sharp will rightly be able to take his fair share of the credit.

If they don't, then it will be circumstances largely outside his control that have brought about their downfall, namely the high number of injuries to key players, the misfortunes surrounding overseas recruits, the loss of McGrath for several weeks when unexpectedly called up by England and the failure of either Craig White or Gavin Hamilton to be able to start bowling again on a regular basis.

At least Matthew Hoggard returned in time after his cartilage operation to record career-best figures of 7-49 against Somerset at Headingley and keep alive Yorkshire's hopes in the Championship.

This nine-wicket victory was a particular triumph in view of the fact that new Australian signing, Damien Martyn, and fast bowler Steve Kirby, both finished up being carted off to hospital by ambulance following their well-recorded incidents.

Sharp looked on incredulously as an ambulance drove up to the dressing-room door for the second consecutive day of the match. "I can hardly believe what I am seeing," he said, and then added "but I suppose things like this are all part and parcel of Yorkshire cricket."

In fact, Sharp knows from personal experience that indeed they are. No player was stretchered off or helped off more often than himself during his playing days and team-mates used to joke that they had already checked on bed availability at local hospitals before play began.

Sharp will take a thoroughly deserved short break at the end of the season before getting down to more hard work as he completes the final stage of his ECB level four coaching course which he started three years' ago and is the highest qualification in the game.

Then, in the New Year, it will be back to taking charge of Yorkshire in readiness for the new season and, as ever, he will be putting his heart and soul into the work.

Updated: 11:33 Saturday, September 13, 2003