Pudsey-born James Middlebrook was nursing a badly-bruised and stitched eye today instead of playing against his native county in Yorkshire's championship curtain-raiser with Essex at Chelmsford.

Middlebrook, the former Yorkshire off-spinner and batsman, top-edged a bouncer from Cambridge UCCE paceman Matthew Friedlander through the protective grille on his helmet and into his eye on Monday.

He was taken to hospital with blood pouring from the wound and his eye was closed and blackened yesterday, forcing him to pull out of Essex's team for today's encounter.

Yorkshire hurried to the Chelmsford ground yesterday in order to get in some much-needed outdoor practice in the afternoon.

So far they have managed only two full days of competitive cricket in the friendly

with Sussex at Hove and for

the rest of the time the

weather has kept them mainly indoors.

Essex have fared much better and all their players had a good warm-up against Cambridge UCCE, who they beat by four wickets.

In addition, two of their other batsmen, Alastair Cook and Zimbabwean Andrew Flower, both contributed heavily for MCC in the season's opening fixture against county champions Warwickshire at Lord's, Cook blasting 120 and 97 and Flower hitting an unbeaten 110 in the second innings.

But when it comes to recent results in the championship, Yorkshire have a distinct advantage over Essex. Last year they completed the double over them and they have come away with victories on six of their last seven visits to the county, their last defeat being in 1989.

Yorkshire's director of cricket David Byas is particularly keen for his team to get off to a winning start because he knows how valuable it is to building up early points in the Second Division.

Matthew Hoggard stays with Yorkshire for their first four championship matches with his England captain, Michael Vaughan, joining him for the last two and Byas knows that he will never have as many top players available to him as in the first four weeks of the season.