Yorkshire v Kent

KENT need beware a Yorkshire side fighting for their Division One existence when the two sides cross swords in a Liverpool Victoria Championship match at Headingley on Wednesday.

Having just completed their 12th game of the campaign Craig White’s Yorkshire team have clambered to seventh in the table and lie just one point clear of Nottinghamshire, who now occupy the second of the relegation slots along with Middlesex.

This latest round of championship fixtures means Kent now go into the game lying fifth in the division after 11 games and will go to Leeds needing to pick up 10 points to leapfrog Warwickshire in fourth.

Rob Key’s side, unbeaten in seven starts, last lost a championship match back in May with a six-wicket reverse against Lancashire at Old Trafford, but they bounced back in their next game to land a high-scoring draw with the white rose county in Canterbury.

That game will be best remembered for a typically hard-hit 124 from Justin Kemp and a counter-punching 193 from Darren Lehmann as Kent enforced the follow-on but failed to dismiss the Tykes for a second time.

Indeed, Kent’s director of coaching Graham Ford believes Yorkshire are a team on the up.

He said: "On paper they are an extremely powerful unit and you cannot take them lightly at all, so I’m expecting these to be a very crucial and hard fought four days.

"When you look at some of the names on that line up you can see we are going to have to be at our sharpest against them, particularly at a time when both sides are keen to get points on the board.

"They have some quality players capable of turning a game in the likes of Darren Lehmann, White who has had a good season with the bat, and young Gideon Kruis who is a fine bowler from South Africa who I know all about.

"If you dissect their team there are plenty of names to worry about, but we try not to worry too much about the opposition and concentrate on our areas and getting our games right."

With seamer-friendly conditions most likely at Headingley, skipper Key seems set to draught in Simon Cook for his first championship appearance since mid-June to replace Martin Saggers who suffered a recurrence of a heel injury in the drawn Canterbury Week game with Hampshire.

Another safety-first option could be to recall top-order batsman Neil Dexter to bolster the top six and bowl his occasional medium-pace swingers.

Left-arm spinner Min Patel has been suffering with a slight back strain and though his chances of playing are rated as highly as 90 per cent, off-spinner James Tredwell will also make the journey up the M1 as cover.

Kent from: Key, Fulton, van Jaarsveld, Walker, Stevens, Dexter, Jones, Bravo, Henderson, Patel, Cook, Khan, Tredwell.