David Warner on Yorkshire Cricket

Bradley Parker has been axed from Yorkshire's championship match against Northamptonshire at Northampton tomorrow in order that 21-year-old Matthew Wood can hold on to his place.

The consolation for Parker is that he is captaining the second team in their one-day game against Nottinghamshire at Castleford today and will also lead them in the three-day match against the same opponents starting at Bradford Park Avenue tomorrow.

He takes over from regular captain Colin Chapman who is nursing a finger injury sustained in the last game and has been told to rest by physiotherapist Wayne Morton.

Wood has made a sensational start to his championship career with a half-century on debut against Somerset which he followed up with a maiden century off Derbyshire's attack.

But the return of Australian Darren Lehmann meant that someone would have to be omitted at Northampton and Parker misses out because of indifferent form in the first two matches, both of which Yorkshire won by big margins to open up a 14 point gap at the top of the table.

Parker, however, has been preferred to Wood in the Benson and Hedges Cup and AXA League and will be hoping to be called to Northampton for the Sunday match.

Explaining his decision, skipper David Byas said: "It is never a pleasant task to have to drop someone but it is a case of horses for courses and Matthew stays in the side because of sheer weight of runs. It is now up to Bradley to get enough runs with the second team to force his way back."

Yorkshire will show one other change from the championship match against Derbyshire with left-arm spinner Richard Stemp returning after a thigh muscle injury to replace Ian Fisher.

"The only reason Richard did not play in the game with Surrey at Headingley on Sunday was because it looked a seamers' pitch and we had the option of using Michael Vaughan's spin if necessary," said Byas.

Yorkshire (v Northamptonshire) from: McGrath, Vaughan, Byas, Lehmann, Wood, White, Blakey, Gough, Hamilton, Silverwood, Hutchison, Stemp. Yorkshire and Leeds CFAC are to apply to the Sports Grounds Initiative organisation for a £600,000 grant to bring about ground improvements on both the cricket and rugby sides of Headingley.

But Yorkshire insist that this is a separate issue to whether they agree to redevelop Headingley in the long term and say that joint talks are still continuing in private on that subject.

If the application is successful, £350,000 will be spent on rugby and £250,000 on cricket which will benefit from improved seating in front of the bowling green and the installation of close circuit television for Test matches and one-day internationals.

The application will be submitted next month and could receive approval in time for work to go ahead in August.

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