Yorkshire entered their penultimate Liverpool Victoria Championship match of the season against Nottinghamshire today at Headingley with director of cricket David Byas confident his bottom-of-the-table side can still escape relegation.
Middlesex, half a point in front of Yorkshire but having played a game more, now look certain to make the drop and the likelihood is that they will be joined by either Yorkshire or Durham.
These two confront each other at Headingley next week, and which of them will go down may not be determined until the final day of the season.
Title-challengers Lancashire will do Yorkshire a good turn if they can beat Durham in the match which began at Old Trafford today but Byas's main concern is that the Tykes should pick up wins in both of their remaining matches.
"I am reasonably confident that we can escape relegation and, if we play solid cricket over the final eight days of the Championship, we should move a few places up the table," he said.
"I think we have shown more consistency in recent games and I hope that this will continue.
"We were well-placed to have beaten Middlesex if rain had not washed out play on the final day at Scarborough in our last match and we were just starting to work our way into a good position against Kent at Headingley when the weather intervened."
Nottinghamshire eased their own relegation worries last week by beating Middlesex but they are aware that they will be in trouble again if they should lose to Yorkshire.
The Tykes show only one change from the Middlesex match in their squad of 12, Jason Gillespie returning from his Ashes camp in Australia at the expense of Ajmal Shahzad.
Once again Yorkshire have chosen two leg-spinners in Mark Lawson and Adil Rashid, but if the pitch does not look like giving too much assistance to the slow bowlers then paceman Steven Patterson may replace one of them.
Darren Lehmann says farewell to Yorkshire at the end of next week and the fans are hoping that the club's most successful batsman of all time will sign off with a glut of runs.
Lehmann has currently scored 1,315 runs at an average of 69.21 in the Championship this season, and a couple of big knocks could still see him overhaul his vintage summer of 1997 when he plundered 1,575 runs.
Bradford-born Anthony McGrath is also enjoying a successful season and he needs a further 195 to beat his record tally last year of 1,425.
Yorkshire have still to decide who, if anyone, will replace Lehmann next season.
If they avoid relegation they may then feel they need two overseas players in order to help them stay up.
But if they go down they may sign only one and give more opportunities to some of their youngsters in readiness for 2008 when each county will be allowed only one overseas player at any one time.
Yorkshire (v Notts) from: White, Sayers, McGrath, Lumb, Lehmann, Rashid, Lawson, Guy, Gillespie, Hoggard, Kruis, Patterson.
- Shane Warne spoke last night at Yorkshire's tribute dinner to Lehmann in Leeds, which was attended by over 450 people.
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