South African Deon Kruis showed what a shrewd signing he has been by capturing five for 59 as Yorkshire sent back Northamptonshire for 281 on the first day of the Championship match at Headingley yesterday.

The Kolpak player, recommended to Yorkshire by Allan Donald, grabbed two wickets in his second spell and then enjoyed a burst of three wickets in ten balls at a cost of only four runs shortly after lunch to have Northants in disarray at 116 for six after they had won the toss.

It was only half-centuries from Ben Phillips and Johann Louw, Kruis's former team-mate at Griqualand West, that stopped Yorkshire from taking complete control on a cool and blustery day.

England boss, Duncan Fletcher, and Academy fast bowling coach, Troy Cooley, were present to watch Matthew Hoggard and Kruis open up with four successive maidens and Martin Love and Bilal Shafayat were just settling in when Kruis, having switched to the Kirkstall Lane end, struck twice.

Love smacked his first three balls for two boundaries and a three but Kruis's next delivery was edged to third slip where Ian Harvey held on to a fast catch.

In his next over, Kruis found the shoulder of Usman Afzaal's bat and this time Harvey took an even better catch as he swooped on the ball and caught it close to the ground.

Yorkshire were bowling with admirable accuracy on a good batting pitch and Northants became 70 for three when Hoggard replaced Kruis and moved one across Love for the alert Harvey to grasp his third consecutive catch.

To have Northants on 100 for three at lunch represented a good morning's work by Yorkshire but better quickly followed as Kruis created further mayhem.

First to go was Robert White, who sliced to Tim Bresnan at gully, and two balls later Gerard Brophy had his leg-stump flattened, but the most valuable wicket came in Kruis's next over with skipper David Sales being beautifully taken at third slip by Anthony McGrath.

Damien Wright and Phillips batted positively to ease Northants out of their crisis but at 156 Wright drove loosely at Hoggard and was caught behind by Ismail Dawood.

Yorkshire's grip relaxed a little as Phillips and Louw launched an assault on off-spinner Richard Dawson who was hit for three sixes and McGrath was also pulled over the rope by Louw.

The eighth wicket pair secured Northants two batting bonus points but after they had added 95 in 23 overs, Louw was caught by Phil Jaques at slip off McGrath for 58 from 80 balls with six fours and three sixes.

McGrath was providing exactly the sort of back-up Yorkshire were looking for and he also claimed the last two wickets to leave Phillips unbeaten on 55.

Matthew Wood and Jaques got Yorkshire off to a solid start, 30 without loss before the last nine overs were lost to bad light.