David Warner on Yorkshire Cricket

Anthony McGrath and Michael Vaughan made confident progress at Maidstone today after Yorkshire had decided to bat first on winning the toss in the championship match against Kent.

The openers were still together after putting on 26 by the tenth over.

This was a vital match for both sides because each team wanted to win in order to strengthen their title claims.

Yorkshire went into the game in sixth place in the table but they were only 25 points adrift of leaders Surrey and had a game in hand of the five sides above them, while Kent trailed Yorkshire by just four points.

There was just one change in the Yorkshire side which beat Durham by nine wickets, fast bowler Matthew Hoggard dropping out in order to accommodate Chris Silverwood who was serving as 12th man for England at the time.

Yorkshire's decision to bat first put off the moment they would have to face up to West Indian Carl Hooper who battered them for a big century on their last visit to The Moat four years ago.

Kent won that game easily and Hooper is in great form at the moment, having just scored a dazzling century in the dash to a championship win over Nottinghamshire.

But Yorkshire have their own in-form batsman in Vaughan who was on the field for the whole of the match against Durham in which he plundered 177 and 36 not out.

It was McGrath, however, who took first strike against Martin McCague and he was soon off the mark with a two and a single before playing out an over from Ben Phillips which would have been a maiden if the paceman had not overstepped the bowling crease.

Vaughan played the first attacking stroke of the morning, getting on the backfoot to straight drive McCague for three and the first boundary arrived in the same over when McGrath squeezed the ball past the slips to third man.

Phillips weighed in with a maiden to Vaughan who cut McCague to the boundary and Yorkshire so far had experienced few problems. Phillips had bowled four overs for three runs when he gave way to England's rejected all-rounder Mark Ealham.

Scarborough Cricket Festival president Sir Tim Rice will be going into bat with a team of Australians. Each member of the Tim Rice International XI to open the festival against a team of Yorkshiremen on Friday, July 10, will be an Aussie.

The Rice line-up includes Darren Lehmann, Tom Moody, Justin Langer, Michael Slater, David Boon, Joe Scuderi, Ian Harvey, Brad Young and Ryan Campbell.

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