Durham's Liam Plunkett was one of several Yorkshiremen to have got up the nose of their native county over the past couple of weeks or so.

It was the 18-year-old Middlesbrough-born Plunkett, however, who possibly caused them the most grief with his five for 53 on Championship debut contributing significantly to Durham's first win over Yorkshire in 11 attempts in the competition since acquiring first class status.

Martyn Moxon was another Yorkshireman with a smiling face at Headingley last Sunday, one of many reasons for his happiness being that Plunkett had not been taken up by Yorkshire after developing his game through their Pathways to Excellence Scheme at the Middlesbrough centre.

Yorkshire cannot be expected to hold on to every golden nugget as they sift through the hundreds of teenagers who come to their notice throughout the county but it would seem that as far as Plunkett is concerned their loss is very much Durham's gain.

The recent run of Yorkshiremen inflicting wounds on their own county began in the rain-hit Championship match with Glamorgan at Headingley when Bradford-born paceman Alex Wharf helped despatch them for 209 with figures of three for 63 before featuring in two record stands for the Welshmen against Yorkshire - 94 for the ninth wicket and 64 for the tenth wicket.

Then it was on to Worcester where no less than three Bradfordians played a major part in knocking the holders out of the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy.

Off-spinner Gareth Batty turned in a useful all-round performance and wicketkeeper Steve Rhodes made valuable late runs but it was David Leatherdale's career-best one day score of 80 which really did the damage.

If there was a feeling of relief that the sequence was over after the pounding from Plunkett it turned out to be misguided because in last week's match with the Bradford-Leeds Universities' Centre of Excellence at Bradford Park Avenue, Dewsbury-born Ismail Dawood gave them more pain and punishment.

The wicketkeeper-batsman, who has spent time with three counties after graduating from the Yorkshire Academy, weighed in with a classy 125, the first century for the Centre since it came into existence three years' ago.

All of the above mentioned players have either had first team experience with Yorkshire at some stage or have been known to the county.

Certainly in the case of some of them it may have been better for Yorkshire if they had never moved on.

Death threats, if they are genuinely that, have always got to be taken seriously, but Yorkshire's director of cricket, Geoff Cope, seems to have over-reacted by revealing on radio that he and the other three members of the club's Management Board had received one in a letter addressed to them at Headingley.

This offending piece of mail was one of several abusive missives to have landed on their mat as a consequence of Yorkshire's terrible slump in form but it turns out that it had actually been signed with the sender's address also clearly marked.

It did not need Hercule Poirot, therefore, to detect that in this instance there was no mystery killer on the loose but rather a disillusioned and somewhat sad Yorkshire fan who had overstepped the mark.

Having whipped up the story themselves, the Board then played it down by writing to the poisoned penman telling him that his intemperate language was not acceptable - which is what they should have done in the first place.

What he had threatened remains a secret.

Probably told them to drop dead or something!