Anthony McGrath's first Championship century of the season at Riverside last week may have been the innings which clinched him a place in England's squad for the NatWest Series of one-day matches with New Zealand and the West Indies which begins on June 24.

The Yorkshire batsman certainly gave a big sigh of relief when he learned he had been selected on Saturday and although England's chairman of selectors, David Graveney, had spoken to him briefly when he was at Riverside on Wednesday he had given nothing away.

"He just said 'well batted' but made no mention of whether or not I would be in the squad," said McGrath. "Obviously, I am delighted to be involved again. I knew it was going to be a close call and I just hope that I get the chance to score a few runs this time."

McGrath is in peak form at the moment and it would have been tough on him if he had been frozen out after touring Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the West Indies with England last winter and not playing in a single one-day international.

The weather hit each series over there so badly that there were few opportunities for players who were not automatic selections and McGrath had to spend all his time watching from the pavilion. His involvement with England led McGrath to make a difficult decision when he returned home and that was to surrender the Yorkshire captaincy which he had been given at the start of last season.

McGrath had only been in the job for a few weeks when he got a surprise call to the England ranks and for the remainder of the summer he had to concentrate hard on his England batting while at the same time wondering how Yorkshire were getting on without him.

It was an unselfish act by McGrath to give up the captaincy and it would have appeared to be the wrong decision from a personal point of view if England had overlooked him at the weekend.

"I would probably have looked a bit foolish but as things have turned out it was exactly the right thing to do," he said.

"Yorkshire are now on a roll in the Championship and also doing well in one-day games. We are beginning to show some consistency but if I were still captain and having to leave for England then the new guy taking over would have to start all over again."

Although England seem to look upon McGrath more as a one-day batsman these days rather than a Test player, his recent record would indicate that he is better equipped for the longer form of the game.

In four totesport League innings before yesterday's match with Worcestershire Royals, McGrath had made 131 runs at an average of 32.75 while in the Championship he has overcome a shaky start to leap to 313 runs from eight innings at an average of 39.12.

Last season in the National League he managed only 112 runs in eight completed innings for an average of 15.25. In a restricted season of Championship cricket he scored 649 runs and averaged 43.26.

One good reason for the sharp contrast this season is that McGrath has been batting at No 5 in the totesport League and there has been little opportunity to build a big innings with overs running out.

Even so, over the longer term McGrath has a better one-day record than his England captain and Yorkshire teammate, Michael Vaughan.

The record book shows that up to the start of this season Vaughan had batted in 155 one-day matches in all competitions for Yorkshire while scoring 3,869 runs at an average of 26.87. McGrath had had 12 fewer innings but had made 3,836 runs at the much better average of 31.19.