With Jacques Rudolph being released back into the wild and shaggy-haired shouty man Ryan Sidebottom making a glorious, lucrative homecoming, this seems a good time to take stock of the Yorkshire first-team squad:

Gale, Lyth, McGrath, Bairstow, Bresnan, Brophy, Rashid, Pyrah, Shahzad, Hannon-Dalby, Moin Ashraf, Sidebottom, Patterson.

What do you reckon? Sure, the batting looks a bit light, but that's a superb attack. Three England quicks and a spinner who would be in the national set-up in any sane, just world. Plus the raw promise of youngsters like Hannon-Dalby and Moin Ashraf.

They could do all right, as long as Gale and Lyth get stacks of runs and Bairstow continues his current rate of improvement.

But what else do you notice? Yes, that's right: every member of that squad was born within the Ridings. All born and bred in God's Own County.

Never mind the return of the Tetley Tea Folk, this is huge Yorkie news.

They stoically (harsher critics might say stubbornly and nose-slicing-face-spitingly) stuck to their Yorkshire-only philosophy throughout the 80s when every other county had at least one West Indian who could hurl a cricket ball at 90mph or make 121 not out before lunch.

Finally came the grudging acceptance that some quite good cricketers don't come from Yorkshire, and the rules were relaxed to allow foreign types like promising scamp Sachin Tendulkar (what became of him? He looked handy) and - even worse - Manchester-born Michael Vaughan don the White Rose.

Now after the likes of Darren Lehmann, Rudolph and (snigger) Tino Best have strutted their stuff at Headingley, the Tykes are going retro. The 80s are so hot right now.

Sky Bet will give you 6/1 for a Yorkshire County Championship title in 2011. Unless they do something daft like signing an Australian fourth-string number three who'll score 1200 runs without batting an eyelid, it's surely in the bag.