ENGLAND captain Michael Vaughan and Matthew Hoggard return for Yorkshire Phoenix against Kent Spitfires at Headingley on Sunday.

They will be trying to help their side end a barren run of three consecutive defeats in the Totesport League.

It is the only chance the pair will have for any competitive cricket ahead of the second Ashes Test which starts at Edgbaston on Thursday.

The out-of-form Vaughan opted for net practice rather than playing for Yorkshire in their rain-affected Championship match against Derbyshire which ended in a draw yesterday.

It will be Vaughan's sixth match of the season for Yorkshire in all competitions and his second in the Totesport League, his previous appearance being against Durham at Riverside when he made 31 but could not prevent Yorkshire from losing by 51 runs.

Yorkshire made a cracking start to their Totesport League season with three consecutive victories but have since gone badly off the boil and their only win in their last five matches has been against Scotland.

They have dipped to sixth in the table and are 12 points adrift of third-placed Durham Dynamos but they have played fewer games than anyone else in the Second Division.

This in itself does not impress director of cricket David Byas. He said: "Games in hand are not worth a jot unless you actually win them and we need to play much better than we did against Warwickshire last Sunday when we never really fired."

Before the game begins, Vaughan will announce the World XI side he has chosen for his Twenty-20 benefit match against Yorkshire at Headingley on August 31.

Failure to dispose quickly of the tail in Derbyshire's first innings resulted in Yorkshire having to settle for a draw on the final day of the rain-hit Championship match at Headingley yesterday.

They made their opponents follow on 220 runs behind early in the afternoon and Derbyshire were 173-5 at the close.

The main consolation for Yorkshire was that the 12 points they took from the game moved them into second place in the second division to improve their chances of promotion.

After the previous day's washout, groundsman Andy Fogarty worked miracles to dry things up sufficiently for a prompt start and Derbyshire resumed on 247-7, still 174 runs away from avoiding the follow-on.

Richard Dawson struck quickly to send back Ant Botha.

But Yorkshire then paid a heavy price for sloppy bowling which was too short and too wide. It enabled both Gray and Ian Hunter to register their highest scores for Derbyshire during a ninth-wicket stand of 90.

Gray, who made a century at Taunton during his time with Yorkshire, played some good forcing shots but Hunter often exposed his stumps to the seamers.

Unfortunately for Yorkshire, nobody bowled straight enough until Tim Bresnan did and Hunter departed for 40 from 54 balls.

Gray and Nick Walker took Derbyshire to lunch at 349-9. A single after the interval earned them a fourth batting bonus point before Chris Silverwood pinned Gray lbw for an enterprising 43.

Yorkshire left themselves with a minimum of 62 overs in which to bowl out their opponents, but stubborn Steve Stubbings put down an anchor which was not hauled up for two-and-a-half hours.

Spirits were then lifted by Deon Kruis who grabbed the wickets of Di Venuto and Hassan Adnan in two balls, but Stubbings stayed glued to the crease. Jon Moss played his natural game, but drove Dawson to Silverwood.

Stubbings was finally shifted in Kruis's next over after he had battled away for120 balls, hitting just two fours.

Yorkshire's last chance of snatching victory disappeared when Phil Jaques dropped Luke Sutton's edge to first slip. Sutton survived again when dropped by Ismail Dawood and he and Graeme Welch held firm.

Yorkshire Phoenix (v Kent Spitfires) from: Vaughan, Wood, McGrath, Jaques, Lumb, Harvey, White, Dawood, Dawson, Bresnan, Hoggard, Kruis.

Updated: 08:54 Saturday, July 30, 2005