YORKSHIRE stood on the threshold of six months of non-stop highly competitive cricket today as they left Headingley on their three-week tour of South Africa.

The party of 14 players arrive back home on Easter Sunday and the following Friday they open up their championship programme by meeting Somerset at Headingley.

The earliest ever competitive start to an English domestic season means that practically all of Yorkshire's outdoor preparations will be in Port Elizabeth and Cape Town, and skipper David Byas has already made it clear to his squad that if they think South Africa is going to be a leisurely holiday then they will pretty soon learn otherwise.

Director of coaching Martyn Moxon, who is also managing the tour, will be keeping a sharp eye on form along with Byas because exceptional performances are almost certain to be rewarded with a senior place at the start of the season - with the possible exception of Colin Chapman who has been appointed second team captain.

The only player not on the tour who is sure to be in the first championship match, barring injury, is Chris Silverwood who cannot make the trip because he is still with England in the West Indies.

Capped left-arm spinner Richard Stemp will be hoping to stake his claim from back home after being left behind as a disciplinary measure, but Stemp's absence leaves the way open for Denholme-born Ian Fisher, who will be 22 on March 31, to pinch his place.It is going to be an important season in the careers of several players who are going out to South Africa, not least for the biggest star of them all - Darren Gough.

A knee injury in the middle of last summer has meant that the Yorkshire and England strike bowler has hardly bowled a ball in anger since and he needs to be able to reassure himself and everyone else that his fitness problems are now behind him and that he can soon become the most menacing paceman in the country again. Gough will ease himself gradually into the three one-day matches in Port Elizabeth but if all goes well he will be getting back to full speed in Cape Town.

In many ways, Gough is in a similar position to three years' ago when he joined Yorkshire in the middle of their South African tour to build up his fitness in the nets after his heroics with England in Australia had been cut short by a stress fracture in his foot.

Bradford-born Anthony McGrath knows that good form on the tour is essential if he is to convince Moxon and Byas that the time really has arrived for him to open the innings regularly with Michael Vaughan now that Moxon has bowed out as a players.

Vaughan's earlier development has already earned him a permanent opener's role - with McGrath so far having either to do the job on a temporary basis or content himself with a middle-of-the-order place.

McGrath needs only to add some reliability to his obvious talent, however, to ensure that he and Vaughan together become as synonymous as Boycott and Lumb, Moxon and Metcalfe, perhaps even Holmes and Sutcliffe.

The one young prospect who could stop this happening is Huddersfield-born Matthew Wood who is certainly good enough to push out McGrath if he scores a mountain of early runs and McGrath doesn't.

Like Gough, Craig White is still on the road to full fitness after an operation and his main aim in South Africa is to prove that his shoulder trouble is now behind him and that he can bat and bowl with total freedom of movement.

White is hungry to re-establish his claims as England's leading all-rounder and he is determined to make a big enough impact at county level this summer to earn him an Ashes trip to Australia next winter.

Perhaps for the first time, Bradley Parker can start a new season confident that he is among the frontrunners for a regular senior place and this should put him under less pressure to feel he has to prove himself. Parker has proved to be a great survivor with Yorkshire over the past few years but must now make weightier contributions on a regular basis.

Pudsey St Lawrence's Paul Hutchison will be looking to continue his heroics of late last season with his left-arm swing bowling but he needs no reminding that Ryan Sidebottom is a serious rival for his place and the pair will be fighting for Yorkshire but battling against each other in South Africa.

Gavin Hamilton has had a successful winter playing club cricket in New Zealand but needs to show he has regained the confidence and form which were absent from his bowling for much of last season, and he will be pressed every inch of the way by Matthew Hoggard who many experts still tip as being the best prospect of all among Yorkshire's battery of fast bowlers.

Skipper Byas and Richard Blakey are the the senior players on tour at 34 and 31 respectively and as well as needing to find early form themselves they have the added responsibility of passing on their experience to a young and enthusiastic squad.

Yorkshire are scheduled to play three one-day matches in Port Elizabeth before arriving in Cape Town where their fixtures include a three-day match against an Emerging Western Province XI and participation in a quadrangular tournament in which Lancashire are also competing. Yorkshire take on a Boland XI in the first semi-final, leaving the way open for a possible Roses day-night final under the floodlights at Newlands, home of Western Province.

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