No play is possible before lunch on day three between Yorkshire and Essex at Emerald Headingley.

This Specsavers County Championship match has yet to start, with the first two days abandoned owing to a wet outfield.

Yorkshire chief executive Mark Arthur said: “The recent bad weather has made for challenging conditions for our ground staff.

“The outfield has been deemed unfit by the umpires on days one and two, and the start of day three for Yorkshire’s opening match of the Specsavers County Championship.

“I can reiterate that there have been absolutely no issues with our drainage system.

“The reason for these delays are that the ground has seen unprecedented wet weather over the past few months. If you couple this with low temperatures on drier days, the ground has had no chance to fully recover.

“Ultimately, the prime concern for the umpires has to be the health and wellbeing of the players.”

When play does get underway, Yorkshire seamer Josh Shaw will take advantage of the county’s injury and unavailability crisis to make only his third Championship appearance for them.

He said: “It’s very frustrating, but we’ve kind of expected it with the weather over the last few weeks.

“We had the Leeds/Bradford game rained off, then Leicester turned into 50 or 60 overs having been arranged as two days. But that’s cricket. You can’t do anything about it. Fingers crossed, we get on soon enough.

“When we do get on, it should be quite nice bowling conditions!

“It could be just a bonus points thing and trying to get as many as we can.

“It’s alright bowling indoors, but only for a certain amount of time. We went to Potchefstroom on pre-season and went from indoors straight to out.

“After that, I was like ‘I’m ready to get outdoors back home now’. Since then, we’ve only been outside three or four times bowling off a full run-up. It’s been quite difficult.”

Essex coach Anthony McGrath said yesterday: “I’m fully behind what the umpires have got to say. I’m just bitterly disappointed that, given we’ve got a sunny day, we’re not playing cricket.

“I believe these are the only two days without rain they’ve had in the last four weeks. You can understand that, and it’s been the same countrywide.

“It’s a shame because the crowd’s building nicely ready for some cricket."