Rich Pyrah is delighted to have finally been given an opportunity to open the batting in 40-over cricket because he has been badgering Yorkshire’s management to let him do it for years.

The all-rounder has been promoted from the lower-middle order to face the new ball alongside Andrew Gale for the early stages of this summer’s Yorkshire Bank 40 campaign.

He has scored nine and six in two Group C matches at the top of the order, and knows he needs to improve quickly if the experiment is to continue.

Yorkshire play their fourth match on Monday against Middlesex at Radlett, which they realistically have to win to keep their hopes of reaching the semi-finals alive after two defeats.

“I’ve been asking for ten years now!” said the 30-year-old, who was promoted after the opening round clash with Glamorgan.

“I’ve waited a long time for a chance, so hopefully they’ll give me a decent run and I can prove what I can do. I just need to get a score now to justify it.”

Captain Gale had four different opening partners last season, with Joe Sayers, Adam Lyth, Phil Jaques and Alex Lees all facing the new ball.

Jaques was the most successful with 212 runs from six matches.

After getting a golden duck as an opener against Glamorgan earlier this month, Jaques batted at No 3 against Somerset and the Unicorns last Sunday.

“I’ve done it a lot in second-team cricket, and as a young lad growing up I was a top-order batsman who didn’t even bowl. I’m going back to my youth in many ways,” continued Pyrah.

With only the top team in the seven-team group guaranteed qualification for the semi-finals, Yorkshire believe they can lose once more in their remaining nine matches to stay in contention.

“We proved what can be done in Twenty20 last year,” added Pyrah.

“We lost the first game, but we got on a run and won seven out of our last nine to finish top of the group. There is no reason why we can’t do it in one-day cricket.”