favourites when the 12th International Youth Tournament begins tomorrow at three local grounds.

England, who up until 1991 competed in this tournament as two teams (North and South), have managed to win seven of the 11 competitions staged since 1975, including four of the last five.

Bermuda hold the distinction of being the only other country with more than one win, though they will be hard pressed to repeat the success of the teams captained by Charlie Marshall and Darrin Lewis in 1979 and '85.

Bermuda have some promising youngsters in Chris Foggo, the son of former St.

David's batting star Vernon Foggo, Quinton Sherlock Jr, Jaja Millett, Coolridge Durham, Justin Robinson, Monroe Darrell Jr, Dale Benjamin and captain Travis Smith. However, few of them are established in club teams.

All of the England youngsters are already connected with county teams and as in the 1995 event in Holland which they won, the squad is mostly made up of under-17 players (only two are older).

It's all part of a development strategy adopted by director of coaching Mickey Stewart, the former England team manager.

The England team are preparing for the Under 19 World Cup next year in South Africa and joining them will be the top two teams from this tournament.

"Since I took over the responsibility of the Development of Excellence programme in 1993, it has always been the policy to progress each age group player as quickly as possible and no matter what his age, he would be pitched into playing in as high an age group as possible, as long as he can hold his own,'' Stewart wrote in the tournament programme which will be distributed at the matches.

England have a bye on the opening day so they won't begin the defence of their title until Monday when they meet Bermuda at Sea Breeze Oval.

The three matches tomorrow see Bermuda playing Ireland at Somerset, Scotland taking on Canada at St. John's Field and Denmark playing Holland at St.

David's.

A total of nine local grounds will be used for the matches, all of which start at 11.00 a.m. and will be 50 overs per side. The final round of matches next Sunday begin at 10.00 because of the prize presentation later that evening.

Champions Somerset Bridge have named five colts in their team for the first round of the Western Counties today at White Hill Field.

Weakened by the departure of Brian Gibbons, who has joined Willow Cuts, and Jeff Richardson who has not played this year, Warwick will look to Arnold Manders and Anthony Amory to fill the guest spots. Their colts are opening batsman Paul Joell, 15-year-old Eugene Johnston, Andrew Wilson, Jermaine Salaam and Maurice Pringle.

Warwick also have two guest players in Treadwell Gibbons and Curtis Jackson of Cleveland who is also a colt.