Yorkshire's cricket committee will discuss the club's growing on-the-field crisis when they meet at Headingley tomorrow.

Although the meeting has been scheduled for some while, chairman Bob Platt and his worried colleagues intend to hold an inquest into the plummeting fortunes of the County Champions.

And chief coach Wayne Clark will be asked what steps are in hand to improve the situation.

The general feeling within the club that action must be taken soon to halt the slide grew even on stronger on Saturday when Yorkshire crashed to Sussex by an innings and 94 runs at Headingley.

The embarrassing defeat plunged Yorkshire to the bottom of the Division One table and left a gap of 12.5 points between themselves and Warwickshire with whom they swapped places.

Yorkshire are now the only side in the Division without a win and each of the three teams above them enjoy a game in hand.

All thoughts of retaining the Championship have vanished and unless there is a dramatic change for the better very soon, Yorkshire will suffer the indignity of dropping into Division Two for the first time.

They have now lost five and drawn one of their first six matches and since winning the Championship at Scarborough last August they have lost seven out of eight games.

Resuming the final day on eight without loss in seven overs, Yorkshire managed to survive for only a further 37 overs before being fired out for 125, their lowest score since making 115 against Surrey at the Oval three years' ago.

The highest partnership was 24 for the ninth wicket between Richard Blakey and Steven Kirby and when Blakey was last out he had managed 28, making the acting captain the season's highest run-scorer with 382.

Yorkshire were torn apart by James Kirtley whose five for 41 gave him match figures of ten for 90 and enhanced his chances of being included this week in England's squad for the forthcoming NatWest Series of one-day internationals with Sri Lanka and India. Hopes of holding out for a draw were dashed as Kirtley picked up the first four wickets to fall and the game was all over 40 minutes after lunch when Kirtley wrapped things up by getting rid of Blakey