Andrew Gale believes Yorkshire have got three of the best spin bowlers in England on their staff.

The captain arrived back with his squad from their pre-season tour of Barbados yesterday, having seen both Azeem Rafiq and Adil Rashid get themselves amongst the wickets.

Left-arm spinner David Wainwright is the other twirler on Gale’s mind but the England World Twenty20 hopeful did not get much game time due to a minor knee injury which cleared up only last week.

“They could give me a real headache when the pitches dry out towards the end of the season,” said Gale.

“I’ve said this before, I think they are three of the best in the country. Azeem bowled superbly on this trip and we all know what the other two are capable of.”

England under-19s off-spinner Rafiq was arguably Yorkshire’s player of the trip in the Caribbean, staking a claim for more first-team cricket with a total of eight wickets in the pair of two-day friendlies.

He claimed five in the first match against Derbyshire and three against Lancashire over the weekend.

Despite Yorkshire only winning one 40-over fixture on tour, and having the better of their two-dayer against Derbyshire early on, Gale believes the trip was a success.

He had said beforehand that there were a number of places up for grabs in his side for the County Championship opener against Warwickshire at Edgbaston on April 9 and that some of the younger players could stake a claim.

“Some of the results haven’t gone our way but we are missing three or four players from our main side,” he said.

“It’s been a good opportunity to have a look at the young lads to see how far away they are.

“Some of them have stood up and really shown how good they can be, while other lads have perhaps learnt that they have still got work to do.”