YORKSHIRE'S drop into the Second Division of the Championship has been nothing short of a disaster, said batsman Anthony McGrath.

Despite the many disappointments which this season brought, however, McGrath said that winning the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy final at Lord's had been a real highlight which the players would never forget.

Although there remains some room for improvement in McGrath's general consistency with the bat, it has still been a highly satisfactory campaign for him, particularly now that his bowling has to be taken seriously and is another string to his bow.

Until this year, McGrath had a career tally of 16 first-class wickets for Yorkshire at 31.87 runs apiece, but injuries and Test calls among the seamers during the summer meant that McGrath was asked to bowl his medium pacers on a regular basis. He did not let the side down, capturing 18 wickets at an average of 26.11.

The most correct of Yorkshire's batsmen, he scored 803 runs at an average of 32.12 in the Championship and would probably have topped the 1,000 mark for the first time if he had not missed a couple of games through injury and had not been slow to find his true form early on.

"After becoming county champions last year, most people were tipping us either to retain the title or challenge Surrey strongly," said McGrath.

"None of us ever envisaged relegation at the start but we never recovered properly from the opening beating by Surrey and the two defeats which followed it.

"Once you are on a losing run it is hard to recover from it and in the end we paid the price for playing badly over the first half of the season.

"We have discussed in the dressing room the reasons for our slump and it was difficult to put a finger on any one particular thing but to be honest I think that early on there was probably a little bit of complacency throughout the squad.

"I think we have shown in the last six weeks we have the right spirit and team to bounce straight back."

McGrath paid tribute to Richard Blakey for the way he had taken over the captaincy when Darren Lehmann returned home early to Australia.

"I think he did a very good job and to make so many runs as well was fantastic," said McGrath.

"I enjoyed being able to offer him advice on the field and would like to think that one day there could be a leadership role for me to take on."

Updated: 12:02 Thursday, September 26, 2002