Yorkshire's fast bowlers may soon start carrying a dummy umpire around with them to try to help solve their mounting no-ball problems!

In their shock two-wicket defeat at Riverside a couple of weeks ago, Yorkshire gave away 18 runs in no-balls in Durham's first innings and eight in the second.

On both occasions they were runs which Yorkshire could ill afford to concede because Durham first time round required 299 to avoid the follow on and they finally made it to 327 and who knows what may have happened on the last day if Durham's run chase had not been boosted by eight no-balls?

Far from clearing up, the problem got worse against Hampshire at Scarborough last week when Steve Kirby and Chris Silverwood between them sent down 21 no-balls in the first innings which added 43 to the visitors' total.

Umpire Jeff Evans, who had to call many of those no-balls at North Marine Road, noticed that Yorkshire's pacemen were delivering the ball from about 18 yards while they were practising.

"This is because there is no umpire there for them to gauge their delivery stride by and they then get into the habit of running past the crease in matches," said Evans.

"I told them that it may be a good idea to take a dummy figure around with them so that they can stand it up and bowl when alongside it in the nets. If it cures the problem it would be well worthwhile."

While Michael Vaughan, Darren Gough and Anthony McGrath may all be battling it out for England in the second Test at Lord's later this week, another trio of Yorkshire players will be keeping the home flag flying by playing for England Under 19s in the first Vodafone Youth Test against South Africa Under 19s at Headingley, starting on Friday.

Fast bowler Tim Bresnan has already made quite a name for himself at Yorkshire first team level while both Joe Sayers and Mark Lawson have got promising futures ahead of them.

Bresnan, 18, made his Yorkshire debut in the National League against Kent at Headingley in 2001 at the age of 16 years and 102 days, making him the county's youngest player since Paul Jarvis in 1981.

Since then he has turned in several reliable performances in one-day matches and in three Championship outings this season has done enough to suggest that he will develop into a fully fledged Test cricketer.

The only downside to Bresnan's latest Under 19s call-up is that it leaves him unavailable for Yorkshire until the beginning of September. If Kirby, Silverwood or Ryan Sidebottom were to break down while Matthew Hoggard is still out injured, Bresnan would otherwise be an automatic replacement.

Sayers, the 19-year-old left-handed opening bat, would almost certainly have a Yorkshire first team debut to his name by now if he were not at Oxford University and captain of cricket.

He is already considered one of the country's rising young stars and it seems as if he will be available full time for Yorkshire either at the beginning of the 2004 season or the following year.

Lawson, an Academy player, is an up and coming leg-spinner and how marvellous it will be if the 17-year-old goes on developing well enough to represent Yorkshire and England.

Nottinghamshire's Bilal Shafayat retains the captaincy for the forthcoming series and also in the squad of 12 is Middlesbrough-born Liam Plunkett who hit the headlines by grabbing match figures of seven for 74 at Headingley last month to bring Durham victory against his native county.