YORKSHIRE’S Gary Ballance has been tipped to shine for England in the West Indies by his ‘Uncle’ Dave Houghton, the former Zimbabwe international.

Zimbabwe-born batsman Ballance lived with Houghton, now on the coaching staff at Middlesex, when he first came to England almost ten years ago.

Houghton was Derbyshire coach at the time, and he offered Ballance a place in their Academy and found him a local club.

Ballance, 25, has since gone from strength to strength, scoring three hundreds in his opening eight Tests for his adopted country England having debuted early last year.

Unfortunately, however, the left-hander, who bats at three for the Test team, has struggled in one-day international cricket.

He recently posted only ten, ten, ten and six in four World Cup matches, leading some to question his Test place for the three-match series in the Caribbean, starting next week.

But Houghton, whose wife is the cousin of Ballance’s father and is known to Gary as ‘Uncle Dave’, said: “You can’t pick Test teams based on one-day form.

“The Test team that played at the end of last summer was in a winning position, they had a good summer, beat India at home, and Gary was very much part of it.

“His stats stand up for themselves, so I would expect him to kick on in the West Indies.

“I think he will have a long and very fruitful Test career, and I also hope that by the time the next World Cup comes around, he’ll be right on top of his one-day game too.”

Yorkshire and England fans have seen two completely different players against the white ball.

For his county, Ballance has been a consistent performer capable of going through the gears and destroying an attack.

For England, he has looked anything but and has been described in some quarters as a one-dimensional cricketer.

Houghton believes his best batting position is at five or six in one-day cricket instead of number three, and he added: “He has got all the shots. Very powerful over extra-cover, over mid-wicket, he plays all the ramps.

“In one-day cricket, he batted at five or six for Yorkshire, and he demolished people with an array of shots that probably only Jos Buttler has got the equivalent of.

“It would be easy to say he should be batting five or six, but the bottom line is he’s batting at three. If he’d got himself in and gone on to get 30 or 40, and started to get into the middle overs, we would have seen what he’s got.”

Back at Headingley, Yorkshire were thankful to an entertaining sixth-wicket stand of 116 between Rich Pyrah (84) and Andrew Hodd (54) as they recovered from 148-5 during toay’s opening day of their friendly against Leeds/Bradford MCC Universities.

Alex Lees also hit 63 and Steve Patterson 41, but Hodd and Pyrah took 51 off three overs at one point during the afternoon on the way to 329-9 declared. The students closed on 46-0 from 16 overs.