Would Darren Lehmann be past his sell-by date when he returned to Yorkshire this season to play out the final year of his current contract?

That was the question some fans were quite reasonably asking of a great batsman who has now reached 36 years of age and whose international career is behind him.

But there is no substitute for class and no benchmark for pure genius and it took Lehmann only three Championship matches and two one-day games to show that the great entertainer has no intention of stepping out of the limelight.

With Lehmann due back at Headingley this season after resting up last summer and with fellow Australian Jason Gillespie also signed in a bid to spice up the fast bowling, Yorkshire reluctantly had to say farewell to another Aussie, Phil Jaques, now at Worcestershire.

Jaques had given splendid service and it was a wrench to let him go but Lehmann looks as if he will go on to equal the 1,359 Championship runs Jaques scored for Yorkshire last season.

Lehmann first joined Yorkshire in 1997. He has just started his seventh season in all with his adopted county.

He began it with 7,165 first-class runs for the county and his average of 66.96 is one which no-one else who has ever played regularly for the club has got anywhere near matching.

Geoff Boycott averaged 57.85, Len Hutton 53.34 and Herbert Sutcliffe 50.20, so Lehmann stands tall among very exalted company.

Yet, remarkably, in his first five Championship innings this season, Lehmann has given every indication he is capable of upping his average.

After getting out to a rash shot for only six in his first innings against Warwickshire at Edgbaston, he then made amends with a breathtaking 150 which took Yorkshire to the verge of making a record-breaking fourth innings winning score of 500 before wickets began to tumble and the target proved elusive.

Then, against Sussex at Headingley, Lehmann twice had the crowd gasping with the sheer audacity of some of his shots as he made 64 in the first innings and 87 in the second.

But the nimble left-hander, who is a law unto himself at the crease, was still only warming up because in the next match against Kent at Canterbury he rescued Yorkshire from 34-4 with a dazzling 193 off 317 balls with 100 of his runs coming in boundaries.

In all, Lehmann's lashing strokeplay had brought him exactly 500 Championship runs from his first five innings to give him an average of 100 to show he is in the form of his life.

One would imagine that Lehmann these days would only shine in four-day cricket when he has time on his side and the pace is less frenetic. Not a bit of it. In fact, the opposite may well be true.

After leaving Canterbury behind, Yorkshire moved on to the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy match with Northamptonshire and Lehmann's innings of 118 not out left spectators breathless and captain Craig White speechless.

Whether playing off the front foot, the back foot or just thrashing the ball with no foot movement at all, Lehmann executed strokes which were impossible for mere mortals even to contemplate and he rushed to his 118 off 86 balls with nine fours and six spiralling sixes.

The Lehmann philosophy is simple.

Attack as soon as you get to the middle because nothing, he believes, puts bowlers off more that a sudden salvo of strokes to all parts of the field.

So far, Lehmann's future with Yorkshire is uncertain because he has not yet made up his mind what he will be doing next spring after captaining South Australia for another season. He admits that Yorkshire may also have someone different in mind.

All that is a long way off and Yorkshire fans must just hope that his body stands up to the strain of it all until September and that he continues to be the great entertainer.

Updated: 13:16 Saturday, May 20, 2006