England captain Michael Vaughan and Test fast bowler Matthew Hoggard are extending their contracts with Yorkshire and will stay at Headingley until at least the end of the 2009 season.

Like Yorkshire's other senior players they are on rolling contracts and are already signed up until the end of this year.

But the pair have been offered a further three years by Director of Cricket David Byas.

"Vaughan and Hoggard are both on central contracts with England but I obviously want them to continue to have long-term futures with Yorkshire and am delighted that they will remain with us for at least the next four summers," said Byas.

Yorkshire needed to get the contracts of their two star players sorted out before England's tour of India starts next month because county cricketers who have not signed beyond 2006 by around April can then be approached by other counties.

Vaughan has already stated that he wants to go on playing for Yorkshire after his England days are over and Hoggard is also likely to want to stay attached to his native county.

Vaughan, 31, and Hoggard, who was 29 on New Year's Eve, still have plenty of England cricket left in them.

But constant round-the-year travel and a crammed agenda do take their toll and their circumstances could be much different in three years' time.

Before the tour of India they have a date at Buckingham Palace, Vaughan to collect an OBE and Hoggard an MBE.

Although happy to have Vaughan and Hoggard on board for the next four years, Byas also realises that probably be available on even fewer occasions next season than last year.

Vaughan managed only two Championship and four one-day matches in 2005 while Hoggard played in six Championship and seven one-dayers, plus five Twenty-20 games.

* Yorkshire's oldest capped cricketer, Alec Coxon, who played in one Test match for England, has died at his home in Roker, Sunderland, after celebrating his 90th birthday last Wednesday.

Born in Huddersfield, Coxon played in 142 matches for Yorkshire between 1945-50.

He captured 464 wickets at the outstanding average of 20.53 runs apiece and scored 2,747 runs in the late middle order for an average of 18.43.

A hostile fast-medium paceman, Coxon's one Test appearance was against Australia at Lord's in 1948, when he scored 19 and nought and took three for 172.

After being released by Yorkshire at the end of the 1950 season, he went on to play for Sunderland from 1952-54, taking over 100 wickets in each season.

Coxon then moved to South Shields where he gave them good all-round service until 1964 when he joined Wearmouth and grabbed 71 wickets in 1966.

He represented Durham County from 1951-54.

He was also the third oldest surviving England cricketer behind Somerset's Norman Mitchell-Innes, 91, and Northamptonshire's Dennis Brookes, who was 90 last October.