Yorkshire have won the county championship a record 29 times since it took its present form in 1890, and nothing would delight the team or the club more than to have their name engraved on the trophy one final time this season before the competition is split into two divisions from next year.

To the gnawing discontent of all their followers, Yorkshire's decades of glorious achievement quickly became a distant memory following their last previous championship success in 1968, but there are positive signs of brighter days ahead now and the new season offers them their best chance yet of ending the barren years.

Already they have been installed as favourites to win the championship by a leading firm of bookmakers and, if nothing else, this should help the players realise that there are plenty of shrewd observers who genuinely believe they are in with a shout.

Apart from a couple of unaccountably bad slip-ups, Yorkshire performed well in the championship throughout last summer, but it was their form in the last few weeks that showed that the team had moulded themselves into something a bit special.

They signed off with five consecutive victories, a sequence not equalled since 1967, and third place in the table was their highest spot since finishing second in 1975.

If Yorkshire can sprint start in similar fashion they should be among the leaders throughout the summer and it is essential that they are because to drift into the lower regions of the table and stay there is a thought that skipper David Byas and his team dare not even contemplate.

The top nine teams at the end of the summer will form next season's Division One of the new championship and Yorkshire pride will be severely dented if the White Rose county are not one of them.

Yorkshire owed much of their considerable strength last season to a fast bowling attack which was the envy of every other county and they are banking on their 'magnificent seven'blazing away just as effectively this time.

Perm any three or four from Darren Gough, Chris Silverwood, Craig White, Paul Hutchison, Gavin Hamilton, Matthew Hoggard and Ryan Sidebottom and you have a pace combination to worry any opponents, no matter how strong their batting line-up may be.

The chief concern for Yorkshire at the moment is that a combination of World Cup and injury problems does not eat too deeply into their resources in the first half of the campaign.

Gough and Hamilton should be available for the first two matches before making their respective ways to the England and Scotland camps and the hope is that by then Hutchison will have recovered from the stress reaction in his back which brought an early end to his England 'A' tour of Zimbabwe and South Africa and will cause him to miss the start of the domestic season.

Hutchison, the club's leading bowler in the championship last year with 57 dismissals at 24.50 runs apiece, says he benefited from joining Yorkshire on their recent pre-season tour of South Africa when he did whatever training he could and he is confident that when he is allowed to bowl again at the end of this month he will make rapid progress back to full fitness.

Silverwood, who had two spells out with shin soreness in 1998, is now approaching peak fitness after slightly revising his bowling action in order to relieve a problem with neck muscles, and the news is particularly encouraging regarding White who grabbed 25 wickets at 13.48 runs apiece in the first five matches last season before going down with back trouble and not bowling again.

White has enjoyed greater freedom of movement following a couple of injections on his back during the winter and has also altered his run-up a shade, the result being that he bowled with some venom in South Africa and now looks like being 100 per cent fit for the start.

Matthew Hoggard, perhaps the most outstanding prospect among Yorkshire's battery of youthful fast bowlers, gained further pace and experience during the winter with Free State who were so impressed with their new recruit that they sought and received permission to hold on to him during Yorkshire's visit to South Africa so that they could play him in the cup semi-final.

With Hutchison currently injured, it was important that fellow left-arm swinger Ryan Sidebottom should do well in South Africa and he emerged as one of the leading wicket-takers after getting over no-ball problems early in the tour.

Yorkshire, of course, will miss the dazzling brilliance of Darren Lehmann this summer before he returns on a two-year contract in 2000, but they are expecting the same silver service from Lehmann's South Australian team-mate Greg Blewett whose mountain of runs this winter has won him back his Test place.

Blewett is due to open the batting with Michael Vaughan, a move brought about because of Anthony McGrath's failure to make a regular impact, and new recruit from Somerset Richard Harden has been signed to put some steel into what last season proved to be a fragile middle-order which too often had to be baled out by the tail.

If Matthew Wood bats like he did in a dream debut season when he plundered three centuries and a double century he will soon be knocking on England's door, but perhaps not before it has been opened for Vaughan who led England 'A' so successfully this winter that they did not lose a match either in Zimbabwe or South Africa.

With Richard Stemp having moved to Nottinghamshire, more opportunities should exist for left-arm spinner Ian Fisher, but if only one spin place is available it may more regularly go to James Middlebrook who impressed with bat, ball and in the field when chances came his way last season.

The top score for Yorkshire while in South Africa came from young all-rounder Gary Fellows with a splendid 148 and he will be challenging strongly for a place along with several other younger members of the squad who are keen to make their mark.

Yorkshire just scraped into the first division of the new CGU Life National League, which replaces the AXA, and greater consistency is required if they are to pull up any trees, but they have an excellent chance of going all the way to Lord's in the Benson and Hedges Super Cup.

By virtue of finishing third in the championship, they are seeded at home to sixth-placed Hampshire in the quarter-finals and if they get over that hurdle they have only their notorious semi-final nerves to conquer.

Leicestershire are Yorkshire's opponents at Headingley in the fourth round of the NatWest Trophy - provided neither side slip up unexpectedly in the third round of the greatly expanded competition - and they will be a tough nut to crack, but all that is in the distant future.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.