Hampshire have confirmed their interest in Yorkshire batsman Michael Lumb.

The South African-born middle order batsman is yet to commit him self to a new deal at Headingley and is now the number one target of Hampshire manager Paul Terry.

Left-hander Lumb impressed Hampshire captain Shane Warne when he scored a century in a losing cause at The Rose Bowl in July.

Terry admits he is also a long-time admirer of the 26-year-old. He said: "Michael Lumb's a quality player and when quality players become available we're always interested.

"We're not looking at changing our squad too much, we don't want to sign players for the sake of it but if we're going to be successsful we can't just rely on 11 good players.

"We have to have good quality replacements to allow for international call ups, injuries and loss of form.

"It's pretty rare that you have consistently successful teams that don't have competition for places."

Lumb is understod to be unhappy at the Yorkshire under director of cricket David Byas.

But Yorkshire signed Pakistan batsman Younis Khan yesterday and hope that Lumb will be persuaded to stay at Headingley if they are also successful in luring Sussex captain Chris Adams from Hove.

Chief executive Stewart Regan said: "Michael hasn't signed a deal with anybody and he's still talking to us.

"We're still trying to persuade him his future lies at the club and hopefully we will be able to reach agreement with him soon."

Terry remains confident of tempting Lumb to the Rose Bowl.

He said: "The club sells itself, we're ambitious and have been reasonably successful in the last couple of years."

Lumb has scored 4,283 first-class runs at 33.22, including 516 at 64.50 in the six championship matches he has played against Hampshire since Terry took over as manager in 2003.

That record includes two Rose Bowl hundreds and Lumb's 105 from just 120 balls in a ten-wicket defeat three months ago was the sort of explosive innings that Warne wants from his middle order.

Lumb graduated from the ECB academy in 2004 and scored 963 championship runs at 41.86 this year.

Terry added: "He didn't do too badly last season and the Headingley wicket is not always the best to bat on."

The son of former Yorkshire opener Richard, Lumb would also be a valuable addition to Hampshire's one-day team, having scored 2,649 one-day runs at 28.18 and a strike rate of 79.69.

As a product of the Gauteng Academy he already knows Hampshire wicketkeeper Nic Pothas.

Lumb emigrated and made his county debut in 2000 and Warne also knows him through his friendship with Darren Lehmann, the former Yorkshire captain.

Perth-based Terry has hinted that Hampshire may not look to sign an overseas batsman if they are successful in signing Lumb.

He added: "That depends on how things work out."