Cricket: Yorkshire Sunny Despite Vaughan Dark Cloud

It is difficult to recall when Yorkshire was such a picture of contentment. They could hardly have started the championship season more impressively and the new management team of Darren Gough as captain and Martyn Moxon as coach can stroll around the concourse to the peculiar sensation of a judgmental membership thinking happy thoughts. Some have even been caught waving.

The only dark cloud was the one hanging over Michael Vaughan, whose fractured finger, suffered against Hampshire last week, gives him only a slim chance of leading England in the first Test against the West Indies at Lord's next week. "He's definitely improved since last week," volunteered Moxon, as Vaughan called another physios' convention, but that was just the coach being nice.

Gough's ebullience and Moxon's equable nature has restored harmony to a dressing room that had fractured under the severity of David Byas' reign. This atmosphere has helped Jacques Rudolph to settle in so remarkably. The South African was the season's most controversial signing, allowed by the ECB only because they knew that European employment law made unenforceable their rule that Rudolph must not have played for South Africa for the preceding 12 months. Rudolph has had to cope with South Africa's race quotas, so hostility is something he has grown up with. He made 190 on debut against Surrey and followed up yesterday with a smooth, unbeaten 129 on a belting Headingley surface.

A trim, undemonstrative batsman, who caresses the ball to the boundary, he was dropped on 81 as he advanced to Gareth Batty's off-spin and Nadeem Malik botched matters at mid-on. Joe Sayers had earlier extended his labours to 123. Yorkshire will struggle to bowl Worcestershire out twice on this pitch, although they did remove Stephen Moore and Vikram Solanki by the close. Solanki had spent most of the day standing in as wicketkeeper for Stephen Davies, who took the day off because his grandmother had died.