YORKSHIRE survived two alarms during their first 24 hours in Durham as neither the heat of the night nor the Riverside furnace could unsettle them.

After being woken at 3am by a hotel fire alarm for the third time this season, they looked like self-combusting in mid-afternoon as they slipped from 160 for two to 197 for six.

But while Durham suffer from the absence of Martin Love, his fellow Aussies are relishing the English heatwave.

After Northants pair Phil Jaques and Mike Hussey made hay at Riverside last week, Durham suffered at the hands of Andy Gray yesterday as he helped Craig White put on an unbroken 143 and Yorkshire closed on 340 for six.

White, raised Down Under, continued to prove he is worth his place purely as a batsman following the recurrence of the rib problem which will prevent him bowling.

He made 173 not out in the last championship match at Derby and he showed great composure yesterday in orchestrating the recovery.

His 82 not out took his tally of runs in his last four first-class innings, including the India A match, to 307 for once out.

After his 104 in the win at Taunton at the end of last month, Gray is being preferred to fellow off-spinner Richard Dawson and his unbeaten 60 again underlined how other counties bat much deeper than Durham.

The pair ensured that Yorkshire took full advantage of winning the toss on a dry pitch and they should now be in a position to dominate the game and achieve their third successive win.

It didn't look that way when skipper Anthony McGrath, who had held the innings together, slapped a Vince Wells long hop to point to fall for 86 and was swiftly followed by Simon Guy.

This was just the time for Shoaib Akhtar to come on and mop up the tail, but again bowling in spells of no more than four overs he caused few problems for the seventh wicket pair and remained wicketless.

He had bowled only 11 overs prior to taking the new ball at 292 for six after 90 overs, at which point his previous economy disappeared and he conceded 24 runs in three overs.

For most of the day the cricket failed to match the scorching weather for the crowd of 2,000, partly because Durham were fortunate to dismiss both Yorkshire's overseas men cheaply.

Mystery surrounded Stephen Fleming's departure for ten as the New Zealand captain sank to his haunches as though he had been hit on the head by a short ball from Stephen Harmison.

The ball lobbed to silly mid-on and Harmison followed through to catch it, appealing with a confidence which was justified by the swift raising of umpire Tony Clarkson's finger. Fleming looked bemused as he stood up and trudged off.

The struggling Yuvraj Singh went for seven, and while he was unlucky to glove a leg-side catch off Nicky Hatch to wicketkeeper Phil Mustard he had already been beaten twice in the over.

Given Durham's recent punishment by left-handers it was a real bonus to remove these two, while a third who has caused them trouble this season, Michael Lumb, drove a return catch to Graeme Bridge to end a stand of 121 with McGrath.

Bridge made his first appearance of the season at the expense of Nicky Phillips, who found himself on the field for most of the day as the heat took its toll.

When Gordon Muchall retired in the morning suffering from blurred vision, Neil Killeen initially went on to field in the unaccustomed position of second slip and promptly dropped Matthew Wood in Hatch's first over.

Phillips then went on instead, but Killeen was soon called on again as Nicky Peng also began to suffer.

One man who might have been expected to enjoy the heat, Shoaib, bowled only five overs before lunch while the more threatening Harmison got through 11.

The Pakistani went very close to bowling Wood in his third over and might have had the same batsman when a cut flew just to the right of Michael Gough at gully, but the fielder appeared to lose sight of it.

Otherwise outright pace looked less of a threat to Yorkshire than the gentle offerings of Wells, who swung the ball past Lumb's outside edge three times in his first over before the left-hander began to prosper.

He made 43 before becoming the only victim for Bridge, who began poorly but settled down and was unlucky when he turned one to find McGrath's edge on 67 but the ball just eluded slip.

McGrath showed his experience in striking the right balance between defence and attack, hitting Shoaib off the back foot to the cover boundary for his tenth four to reach 50.

He added five more boundaries before surrendering to the first ball of Wells' second spell and in his next over Guy drove at a gentle away swinger and edged to Mustard.

White was very circumspect early on, allowing Gray to outscore him, and their respective 50s came off 114 and 92 balls.

But White's extra class showed thereafter as the pair eclipsed Yorkshire's record seventh wicket stand against Durham of 71 by Richard Blakey and Mike Foster at the Racecourse in 1994