Have your say: Competition for places sees Sayers as the one to suffer

Sayers has been axed after scoring 165 runs in seven Championship innings at an average of 23.57.

Sayers will be replaced for tomorrow’s game against Hampshire at Headingley Carnegie by Adam Lyth, who retains his place after scoring 36 in his solitary innings to date against Gloucestershire last Saturday.

The change to the top of the order has been forced by the return of fellow opening batsman Joe Root from England Lions’ duty.

Yorkshire will again be without Mitchell Starc, the Australian pace bowler who is in the process of returning to England following complications with his visa.

Starc had been expected to make his debut at Bristol last week but was deported owing to paperwork problems.

Yorkshire are without Jonny Bairstow and Tim Bresnan due to England commitments, so Gerard Brophy retains his place behind the stumps, while pace bowler Iain Wardlaw returns to the party. Off-spinner Azeem Rafiq is also included.

The decision to drop Sayers, 28, will be hotly debated by Yorkshire’s supporters, coming so soon into a season in which the club have invested him with greater responsibility.

Although the left-hander has not managed a sizeable score (indeed, he is the only Yorkshire batsman who started the season not to have registered a half-century in Championship cricket), he has not looked out of form either.

However, Lyth was unlucky to be left out in the first place and is determined to recapture his remarkable form of 2010, when he was the first man in the country to 1,000 first-class runs.

There is certainly strong competition in the batting department and options aplenty for captain Andrew Gale and coach Jason Gillespie as Yorkshire – joint-top of Division Two – chase a third successive win.

Yorkshire squad (v Hampshire): Lyth, Root, Jaques, Gale (capt), Ballance, McGrath, Brophy, Rashid, Rafiq, Sidebottom, Patterson, Wardlaw.