By JMB
September 9 2006

David Byas believes Yorkshire can still salvage pride from a disappointing season. The matches that await ove the next couple of weeks will decide the counties fate. Byas said "It can still be a successful season for us." The Tykes face Surrey at The Oval in the Pro40 League tomorrow knowing that nothing less than a victory will keep alive their promotion ambitions. Yorkshire are currently sixth in Division Two and enter the match four points adrift of their opponents having played a match more. Victory tomorrow and in their final two matches in the competition against Kent and Hampshire – will rekindle their hopes, particularly with the side finishing third having to play off for a place in the top flight with Division One's third-bottom side.

Yorkshire then take their County Championship survival fight to Scarborough for a four-day clash with Middlesex on Wednesday. The Tykes have slipped back into the bottom two and need an impressive return from their final three games to avoid the trapdoor to Division Two. With all their remaining games in the Championship at home, Byas is hopeful of survival.

He said: "It's an important week which begins with a trip to The Oval tomorrow. We've still a glimmer of hope with victory tomorrow in that competition and then we go into a crucial match with Middlesex at Scarborough. All three matches in the Championship are important to us but they're all at home which should be an advantage. It has been a disappointing season but in the C&G Trophy we played some good cricket after the first game, and then in the Twenty20 we got the furthest we ever had in that particular competition. We are still in with a chance of making it to the top five in the Championship and if we achieve that, and get promotion in the Pro40 then it will have been a successful season."

The blooding of youngsters like Adil Rashid and Andrew Gale also proves that the season hasn't been an entirely fruitless one at Headingley Carnegie. Byas added: "We have played more solid cricket recently which has been encouraging. But I'm the first to admit that we are not the finished article and it's not 2001 by a country mile."

Adil Rashid looks set to make his one day debut in the Pro40 against Surrey after being named in a twelve man squad. Matthew Hoggard has not been released by England to play in the match while Tim Bresnan, who has been struggling with a back injury, has been deemed not quite fit enough for tomorrow's game but could return for the Middlesex match.

Yorkshire squad for tomorrow's game (from): White (captain), McGrath, Lehmann, Lumb, Gale, Brophy, Dawson, Pyrah, Patterson, Kruis, Thornicroft, Rashid.