Yorkshire hope Middle East practice makes perfect for the campaign ahead

Yorkshire director of professional cricket Martyn Moxon.

Yorkshire are determined to not only defend their County Championship title but also to compete strongly for silverware in the NatWest T20 Blast and Royal London One-Day Cup.

Moxon believes the two-week trip to the Middle East - the highlight of which is the prestigious Champion County game against MCC - will give his players the best opportunity to hit the ground running.

Yorkshire’s Championship campaign starts on April 12 when they face newly-promoted Worcestershire at New Road.

“We want to challenge in all three competitions this season and the trip to Abu Dhabi provides us with the ideal preparation,” said Moxon.

“We’ve got a nice programme over there - we know there’s going to be some good facilities and some good opposition - and it promises to be a great couple of weeks.

“The lads have worked really hard again this winter indoors and are looking forward to getting outside.

“We’ve had a few lads away with England Lions, so they’ve had that experience of playing outdoors, but the lads who have been here all winter are ready for getting outside now and getting on to grass.”

Yorkshire play MCC from March 22-25 in a first-class match which will be played under lights with a pink ball.

The fixture at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium pits the champions’ attack against England captain Alastair Cook, who will be aiming to gain form ahead of next month’s tour to West Indies.

Yorkshire also play a T20 Finals Day-type tournament in Dubai on March 20 that involves MCC, Lancashire and Sussex, with the semi-final line-up pitting Yorkshire against Lancashire.

The tour starts with a two-day inter-squad practice game from Monday and also features a T20 friendly against Middlesex in Abu Dhabi on March 19.

“The T20 games will be good experience because we felt disappointed that we didn’t progress last year in the one-day competitions,” said Moxon.

“We gave ourselves the opportunity to but we missed out and we want to get to the latter stages this time around.

“We very much want to repeat our success in the Championship and hope to have a really good go in all competitions.

“That’s our aim going into the season.”