JAMES ANDERSON is relishing a rare chance to rip into Yorkshire when the Roses match gets under way at Liverpool this morning.

England’s Ashes hero will be in the Lancashire side that goes for a fourth LV= County Championship in victory in five games this season – only his sixth appearance in the Championship against the old enemy.

“Five is actually more than I thought I’d played,” said Anderson, whose return to county cricket will be on hold again when he joins up with England for the first Test of the summer against Sri Lanka next week.

“I remember one of my first games for Lancashire was a Roses match, and they’re great games to play in.

They’re usually a great atmosphere, and I’m sure that will be no different at Liverpool. It will be hard-fought, for sure.”

Anderson, who has taken 25 wickets including two five-wicket hauls against the Headingley outfit, played in the most recent four-day win against Warwickshire at Edgbaston, leaving Lancs as the early season pacesetters in their bid for a first title since 1934.

And they have received an extra boost in their bid to consolidate their lead thanks to Yorkshire’s weakened selection pool – in stark contrast to the Red Rose having the luxury of England’s top Ashes bowler to represent them.

The fixture clashes with the England Lions v Sri Lanka four-day match at Derby, where White Rose pair Jonny Bairstow and Ajmal Shahzad will play.

And a right calf injury to Anderson’s England colleague Tim Bresnan, who has suffered a recurrence of the same problem which hampered him through the latter half of the winter, has ruled him out of the fixture.

Yorkshire are also sweating on the fitness of wicketkeeper Gerard Brophy after he took two blows to his right thumb in their draw against Hampshire on Saturday.

Lancashire all-rounder Luke Procter could make his Roses debut after impressing during the last two four-day matches with both bat and ball.

The 22-year-old said: “To play in that would be a massive moment in my career. The pressure of it as well, I’d love to play under that sort of pressure.”

Steven Croft led Lancashire in Sunday’s Clydesdale Bank 40 match against Somerset at Taunton, but will be relieved of the captaincy duties when Glen Chapple returns after being rested for that encounter.

With the strength of the bowling attacks for both sides, and with the conditions at Liverpool making a positive result the most likely depending on the weather, Croft is expecting the batsmen to be the key to the contest.

He added: “It has been shown over the last four or five seasons at Liverpool that wickets haven’t been too much of a problem.

“The key at Liverpool is to score heavy runs because there’s no doubt that you can take 20 wickets.

“The team who scores the heaviest in the first innings has a great chance of winning the game.”

Lancashire (from): Chapple (cap), Anderson, Brown, Chilton, Croft, Cross (wkt), Horton, Keedy, Kerrigan, Maharoof, Mahmood, Moore, Procter.

Yorkshire from: Gale (cap), Lyth, Sayers, Root, Gale, Ballance, Brophy (wkt), Rashid, Sidebottom, Patterson, Ashraf, Hannon-Dalby, Wainwright, Guy.