Bradford-born Anthony McGrath completed 1,000 first class runs for the first time in his career as Yorkshire took charge against Worcestershire at Headingley yesterday.

McGrath wasted little time in scoring the 24 he required to reach the milestone and he was still going strong with a dashing 65 at the close with Yorkshire 96 for two in reply to their opponents total of 308.

West Indies batsman Chris Gayle started it all off by blasting Deon Kruis for seven boundaries from his first seven scoring shots, the mayhem being played out while Yorkshire's debutant paceman, Australian Mark Cleary, began with two maidens to Stephen Moore.

Some of Gayle's strokes were authentic enough while others were off the edge but his luck ran out after dashing to 29 off 17 balls when he carved Kruis straight to Joe Sayers at third man.

Kruis soon recovered his poise while Cleary bowled extremely well but it was Tim Bresnan, coming on as first change, who made the biggest impact with two quick wickets to leave Worcestershire on 92 for three.

His first was that of Graeme Hick, caught low at gully by Craig White who then held on to a breathtaking one-handed catch flinging himself to his left to send back Moore.

Vikram Solanki and Steven Davies shored up the middle order by getting into the 40s before being out, but Yorkshire kept plugging away and Cleary finally collected his first wicket when Shoaib Akhtar poked the last of four catches to Simon Guy who had an excellent day behind the stumps.

At 250 for nine, Worcestershire looked finished but Matt Mason and Nadeem Malik hit out successfully in a last wicket stand of 58 from 70 balls that raced their side to a third batting bonus point and it took a return catch by Richard Dawson off Mason to wrap things up.

Yorkshire's reply began badly as Matthew Wood drilled Kabir Ali straight to Gareth Batty at cover point in the first over but McGrath walked to the crease in confident mood and quickly took complete control of his 87 stand in 16 overs with Sayers. McGrath reached his half-century off 40 balls with his tenth four.