CRAIG White and Andy Gray added a dash of colour to Yorkshire's first innings at Riverside yesterday to help put their side in a strong position on the opening day of the Championship match against Durham.

Yorkshire were in some trouble when the pair came together at 197-6 but they soon repaired the damage with an unbroken partnership of 143 in 42 overs which rattled the score on to 340-6 by the close.

White, who plundered 173no in his last Championship innings at Derby, finished with 82, while Gray had 60 and their stand was easily a Yorkshire record for the seventh wicket against Durham, beating the 71 by Richard Blakey and Michael Foster at the Racecourse ground in 1994.

Gray has often looked a paler shade of White at the crease but on this occasion he was his equal. As Gray has developed his batting he has taken on several of White's characteristics and at times in was difficult to tell the pair apart.

White and Gray did not entirely dominate events. It was also a highly successful day for Yorkshire captain Anthony McGrath making his first appearance for the county since mid-May.

McGrath enhanced his chances of getting an England place in the first Test against South Africa at Edgbaston next week with a well structured 86, his highest score of the season, and the only pity was that he got out to a soft shot when a century beckoned.

On another day of blistering heat, McGrath was grateful to win the toss on a good batting pitch but Matthew Wood and Stephen Fleming were both given a torrid time by the venomous new ball attack of Pakistan's Shoaib Akhtar and England's Steve Harmison.

Shoaib bowled some unpleasantly quick deliveries but it was Harmison who picked up the wickets of the openers with only 39 scored. Fleming got a vicious short ball which touched his glove and then bruised his upper arm before clanging into his helmet and staying in the air just long enough for the bowler to charge down the pitch and hold a return catch. Wood was taken at short leg by Nicky Peng.

Yorkshire would have been in all sorts of trouble if Michael Lumb had not joined McGrath in a sparkling stand of 121 in 33 overs. But Lumb was denied his half-century when he didn't get to the pitch of a ball from left-arm spinner Graeme Bridge.

It was the start of a mini-collapse which brought Durham four wickets for 37 runs including that of McGrath, who slapped the first ball of a new spell from Vince Wells straight to Gary Pratt in the covers after facing 152 balls and hitting 15 boundaries.

Yuvraj Singh and Simon Guy failed to make the runs each desperately needs but White and Gray staged their recovery in fine style without either of them giving a clear chance.

Updated: 11:10 Wednesday, July 16, 2003