Jack Brooks believes Yorkshire will be among the favourites to win the LV= County Championship when they kick off 2014 against Somerset at Taunton on Sunday, April 13.
The former Northamptonshire fast bowler, who meets his old team-mates a week later at Headingley in the county’s first home match, says confidence is high in the White Rose camp that they can better last summer’s second-place finish in Division One.
“There was a massive disappointment in the dressing room last season having not won it, so it would be nice to right some wrongs next season,” said Brooks after yesterday’s release of the fixtures.
“It is going to be tough because there are some very good teams in the division.
“You never know what’s going to happen but I’d imagine we’ll be seen as one of the favourites. We are pretty confident.”
Roses four-day cricket returns to the schedule for the first time since 2011, when Lancashire completed the double.
Yorkshire’s opportunities for revenge come at Headingley on Sunday, May 25 and at Emirates Old Trafford on Sunday, August 31.
Brooks, who will be getting his first taste of that fixture, said: “I think it’s pretty vital (to have it back on the schedule). It’s the main derby game in county cricket.
“You can market the Twenty20 games as a bit of a battle and sell them out but the Championship stuff is a different kettle of fish.”
Yorkshire play Lancashire twice in the newly-named NatWest T20 Blast competition as well and once in the Royal London One-Day Cup.
They will also face the Birmingham Bears in Twenty20 cricket after Warwickshire announced their new name for the game’s shortest format.
Middlesex and Sussex visit Scarborough for Champion-ship matches in late July and mid-August respectively, while Somerset’s visit to Headingley rounds off the season starting on Tuesday, September 23.
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