Is the new Yorkshire team structure, assembled so successfully over the past few weeks, built on a firm foundation or has it once again been constructed on shifting sands?

The first big test comes on Wednesday week when Yorkshire open their Championship programme by visiting Surrey at The Oval.

New captain Darren Gough believes Yorkshire have acquired the perfect blend of youth and experience to make them a force in all competitions but how much has really changed for the better since last year's dismal campaign remains to be seen.

On paper, Yorkshire appear to have a terrific line-up with a wealth of batsmen and fast bowlers who have featured at international level.

And in Bradford-born Adil Rashid and Mark Lawson they have got what is generally acknowledged to be the best pair of young leg-spinners in the country.

But last year's squad also looked more threatening on paper than it turned out to be in reality. Much will depend upon whether Gough can heal the wounds that are said to have been caused by a lack of communications between the players and former director of cricket David Byas.

The jury is still out on this issue and will not deliver its verdict until well into the season when it should be more apparent whether Byas's way of working was to blame or if the players were simply making excuses.

What Yorkshire must strive for in the Championship is a greater collective first innings effort from their batsmen, who last season only managed 400-plus and maximum batting bonus points twice.

Not only did this failing cost the team valuable batting points but it made life much easier for their opponents, who were able to take charge much easier than if Yorkshire had made larger first innings scores.

On the face of it, a top-five batting line-up of Joe Sayers, Craig White, Anthony McGrath, Younis Khan and Jacques Rudolph, with capable batsmen to follow, should be up to it.

But this season, of course, Yorkshire are without the irreplaceable Darren Lehmann, who signed off with 1,706 Championship runs last summer, and Michael Lumb, now with Hampshire, who hit 963.

Their exit means replacements, Younis and Rudolph need to score 2,669 runs between them just to achieve what Lehmann and Lumb managed.

McGrath, now happily settled with his native county again after a winter of turmoil, will be hoping to score at least the 1,293 runs he notched last year.

The fast bowling, like the batting, looks strong, but so it did in 2006 when it turned out to be most disappointing.

The only addition to the ranks this time is the return of Gough himself, which means that one of Matthew Hoggard, Jason Gillespie, Deon Kruis and Tim Bresnan will be surplus to requirements at The Oval. The axe will probably fall on Kruis or Bresnan but will Gough be a better bet than either of them?

Gillespie, the fifth most successful Test bowler in Australia's history, undoubtedly under-performed last year with 36 wickets at 33.61 runs apiece and so did Kruis with 38 at 35.31 but I believe both will show an improvement this time.

Gillespie should be more refreshed than last season, when he flew straight in from back-to-back Tests in Bangladesh after a busy summer with South Australia, and Kruis struggled after he tore a calf muscle on the eve of the first match.

If Gough and new director of professional cricket Martyn Moxon can work their magic, then performances in one-day cricket should improve dramatically.

They can hardly get worse, Yorkshire last season finishing way down the North Conference of the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy (now the Friends Provident) and ending up rock-bottom of the Second Division of the NatWest Pro40 competition.