Yorkshire's new captain Anthony McGrath has admitted that the side had fallen short of their best in coloured clothing cricket in recent years - and he pledged that this summer they would be working flat out to become National League champions.

McGrath is prepared for a tough scrap tomorrow when he leads out Yorkshire Phoenix in their opening match against strongly-fancied Warwickshire Bears at Edgbaston.

"There is no doubt that we have under-performed in the National League but we have a well-balanced side for one-day cricket and I think we stand a very good chance of finishing on top," said McGrath.

"Getting back into the top flight of the Championship at the first attempt is our main objective but that does not mean to say we are giving up on limited-overs cricket.

"We want to win the National League and we are determined successfully to defend our title as Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy champions. It was a brilliant experience going to Lord's last season and we are all eager to repeat it this time.

"The new Twenty/20 Cup has got its critics but the ECB are anxious for it to succeed and I want us to stamp our authority on it. We shall certainly be taking it seriously and striving to make an impact."

Although Phoenix have been in Division One of the National League since the competition was split into two at the start of the 1999 season, they have only once made a serious challenge for the title and that was in 2000, when they finished second to Gloucestershire by two points.

Last year a run of four consecutive defeats put Phoenix in serious danger of ending up in one of the three relegation places before they escaped by winning their last two matches.

The penultimate game was at Edgbaston, when they batted superbly under floodlights to bait the Bears and win by eight wickets. Yorkshire experimented by letting Michael Lumb open the innings for the first time and the left-hander responded with a dazzling 73.

It looks as if Lumb will hold on to the job and go in first with Matthew Wood, who is determined to continue his vastly improved form. Wood was cast into the wilderness last summer, both in the Championship and National League, after a string of low scores but he has worked hard on his game during the winter and last week at Headingley he bounced back with a faultless 157 against Northamptonshire.

Although Yorkshire fancy their chances tomorrow, they go into the game without four of their Test players in Australian Matthew Elliott, Michael Vaughan, Craig White and Matthew Hoggard.

Elliott, who plundered 266 runs with two centuries in five National League matches after joining up with Yorkshire last season, is still suffering a slight knee strain, while Hoggard picked up a stomach strain at Headingley last week. White is on the road to recovery after his operation to remove part of a rib and Vaughan is barred from playing in this game by England, but the world's top Test batsman last year marks his return next Wednesday in Yorkshire's Championship match against Hampshire at the Rose Bowl.