Date-stamped : 11 Sep96 - 16:59 ==========================>Preview Natwest Trophy Final: Lancashire to profit from depth Christopher Martin-Jenkins considers the strengths of the two contestants in today`s Lord`s showpiece IT IS not just the groundsman who is praying for sunshine at Lord`s this morning. Mike Watkinson, whose captaincy of Lancashire in his benefit season is apparently under threat despite the possibility of a second double in the knockout competitions, and Paul Prichard, who still has eyes on the even greater prize of a NatWest/championship double, will be equally keen to see a dry pitch and a cloudless sky when they toss the coin shortly before the 10.30 start. The forecast is promising but the statistics will defy the winning captain to bat first. The look of the pitch will be tempting, sufficiently so for the logical decision to be to bat in a game likely to finish in a run-chase hampered by darkness and dew. In the words of the MCC cricket secretary, John Jameson, it is "dry and firm with a few cracks in it". It would be a brave man, however, who ignored the fact that in 33 previous September finals only nine matches have been won by the side batting first. That figure tells the simple tale that the side winning the toss usually wins. Allan Lamb won it last year but he chose to bat and Northamptonshire lost. It is 11 years, indeed, since the side batting first have won and there is a certain piquancy to the fact that the club who managed it were Essex, with Graham Gooch making 91. Even then, the Essex win was by a single run only, when Derek Randall scored 16 off the first five balls of Derek Pringle`s final over. The one-sided story since is distorted a little by Warwickshire`s wonderful performance in 1993, when they overhauled an apparently unassailable Sussex score of 321 for six. There are swing bowlers on both sides who will relish the prospect of fielding first today but the best hope, perhaps, of another thrilling finish in the dusk is for Lancashire to bat first. If they do not, too much for Essex would seem to depend on another match-winning performance by Gooch, whose last big match at Lord`s this might be if he is to become the new chairman of selectors. No one has received so many as Gooch`s nine man-of-the-match awards. He has just made his 127th first-class hundred and, for all the full maturing of Nasser Hussain`s talent, his is the wicket which Lancashire`s swing bowlers - Peter Martin, Glenn Chapple and Ian Austin - will most want to get early. In the absence of Stuart Law (though the Australian is expected to return later this week for Essex`s last two championship matches) Gooch`s formidable flair for the big occasion is the chief threat to a repetition of Lancashire`s double in the Lord`s finals of 1990. Essex do have, however, in Ronnie Irani, a cricketer in the Reeve mould, one who makes a mark of some kind on most games he plays. The selectors will be choosing their touring sides for the winter on Monday and Irani is aware that one final eye-catching performance with bat, ball or both would probably make him the first choice as the all-rounder. As if this combative cricketer needed any extra motivation, he sat inactive on the dressing-room balcony while Lancashire were playing in four finals during his four years on the staff at Old Trafford. Law`s absence on Australian duty merely gives Irani greater responsibility, one which he accepted well when Law was out for 53 in the semi-final against Surrey. Left with something to do, Irani made 52 not out. "My job is winning matches," he says succinctly. "I am in the team to make 20s and 30s and take crucial wickets when the pressure is on." Austin and Chapple might see themselves in much the same light for Lancashire. Watkinson, too, perhaps. He is a cricketer who, in the words of his former captain, David Hughes, "thinks only for the team". The real difference in the sides on paper, however, lies in Lancashire`s greater depth of batting. In Mike Atherton and John Crawley they have Test batsmen of quality who adapt effectively to the requirements of a 60- over match, and in Neil Fairbrother and Graham Lloyd two specialists in the art of the mid-innings acceleration. Should one or other fail, Warren Hegg is a dangerously fast scorer who is likely to be restored as the England A wicketkeeper in Australia this winter, and the rest of them have made first-class hundreds. If all this does not make Lancashire unbeatable today, it makes them clear favourites to win the major one-day trophy for the sixth time. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph =========================>Report Lord`s and Lancashire prove too much for Essex as seam bowlers reign supreme By Scyld Berry Lancashire (186) bt Essex (57) OVER the years, it has become more and more difficult to bat at Lord`s in September cup finals. Yesterday, when Essex tried to reply to Lancashire`s modest total, it became impossible. Seam bowling, if not madness too, reigned supreme on a pitch of low bounce and lavish seam movement. The ball moved unpredictably in both horizontal and vertical planes, as Essex were reduced to the unprecedented poverty of 34 for eight. The previous lowest total in a 60-over final was 118 by Lancashire in 1974. Essex did not deserve the ignominy of a new record low, least of all grand old man Graham Gooch. Such an experience as yesterday`s was all the more likely to make him retreat into retirement. Batting first, after being sent in, turned out to be some advantage to Lancashire. The surface of an uncompacted pitch only became looser, and the ball, a Duke, swung as much in the afternoon as in the freshness of morning. So difficult has it become to bat first at Lord`s - never mind second - that the average total of the sides batting first is a fraction less than 200, if we take the last nine finals, but exclude that of 1993 when Sussex and Warwickshire proved the exception to the rule. If there is no space for a second Lord`s cup final earlier in the season than September, it may be because English cricket has no room for four domestic competitions. In any event, the review of the domestic programme of first-class cricket scheduled for this winter must come up with a change to the existing arrangement. The match would have been even lower scoring, to farcical proportions, if John Crawley had been given out first ball when surprised by late inswing, his feet not yet moving. Mike Atherton had been bowled by a full-length inswinger from Mark Ilott, whose next ball was similar to all appearances, though not in umpire David Shepherd`s actual judgment. Most of the crowd, not just Essex supporters, uttered "Cor!" when they saw a replay on the screen of the rejected lbw appeal. All of Lancashire`s one-day savvy - this was the county`s 14th cup final here - was brought to bear in batting through their 60 overs. Ilott does not often swing the ball into the right- handed batsman, which is why he is not an England regular, but he did in his first spell, if nothing like so dangerously as Peter Martin later did from the same pavilion end. The evenly-grassed, relaid strips near the treacherous one of yesterday promised a happier setting for future finals. This one was an accumulation of unbonded layers of soil piled up through the ages, allowing the ball to move around off its uncompacted surface. Ronnie Irani put the ball in the right place with eager accuracy, again if not so dangerously as Glen Chapple later did from the Nursery end. Irani proved that he is a better one-day bowler than he has been so far for England in internationals, but it will be first- class dismissals which prove that he has become a fourth seamer at Test level. England`s selectors have been highly impressionable at September cup final time, but this year two of them were playing. Ashley Cowan, before he had the privilege of top scoring, made a favourable impression with his two outfield catches, and some fine bowling marred only by an eighth over in his opening spell, which conceded 11 runs, mostly to Crawley. Open-chested in delivery like Irani, Cowan pitched a shorter length, too short to pick up wickets, but the right length for Australian pitches. Neil Fairbrother was bowled through the gate, Graham Lloyd pushed forward and edged to the lone slip, a catch which gave Gooch as much delight as some of his hundreds. But a cricketer never knows what this game has in store. In bowling the 40th over, Neil Williams pulled up with a strained right thigh, whereupon Paul Grayson completed his over and Crawley his 50. Still, Lancashire`s rate lagged behind three runs an over, and Mike Watkinson was bowled when trying to accelerate by hitting to the emptier off side. It was an unlucky dismissal for Crawley, when he edged his on-drive down the pitch, and the ball trickled back to the stumper. Ian Austin smote a six off Grayson, gold dust in retrospect at a blow, but was caught next ball. Grayson filled in commendably, but the statistic remained that the 12 overs shared between him and Williams cost 63 runs on this day of batsman`s penury. But all of Lancashire`s struggles were as nothing to those suffered by Essex at the hands of Martin and Chapple. Martin`s outswinger did not exactly defy gravity, but it went up the slope with daunting regularity, to be varied by the one that kept straight on or jagged one. This was not the valediction that Gooch sought on what could well be his last major appearance. The best batsman of his generation, the man who has scored more competitive runs than Sir Jack Hobbs, was forced to lie doggo for his 21 overs at the crease. Martin`s outswinger up the slope was too much for ordinary mortals, drawing Grayson and Hussain, who makes relatively few one-day runs, into its net, and into Hegg`s gloves. His opening spell of 10 overs brought him three wickets for 17 runs, and Lancashire`s second cup of their season close to hand. Prichard edged Martin between first and second slips, before being caught by first. Irani cracked Chapple square, as a rare attacking gesture, only to be scuttled in the same over by a ball not much bouncier than a shooter. Essex`s disintegration was relentless, Darren Robinson edging to first slip, and Rollins bowled by a perfect outswinger. Finally, it was Gooch`s turn, trapped by the medium-pace of Gallian`s first ball. Keith Fletcher`s face did not make a happy sight. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph ================================>More..... NatWest Trophy Final: Crushing Essex defeat the final knockout blow By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Lord`s Lancashire (186) bt Essex (57) FOR ALL but Lancashire supporters, the NatWest final of 1996 was like an unfinished symphony; but good will come of it. The lowest- scoring Lord`s final of them all has hammered the final nail in the coffin of a tournament which normally ends in brightness and excitement at the height of summer. Farewell, some 21st century romantic may write, my Benson and my Hedges long ago. It is not the fault of those who have sponsored the second knockout competition for 25 years, but when the dust has settled on the extraordinary events encompassed by Essex`s 27-overs and two- balls innings on Saturday, even the most purblind of the marketing experts at the Test and County Cricket Board will be obliged to realise that the Benson and Hedges Cup has to be abandoned. County executives will be more inclined to give way on this than they will on the Sunday (or at least the one-day) League, and no- one now will be able to argue for the good sense of a 60-over final in September. It simply makes no sense for the four semi-final teams to have scored 270 this year only for the two finalists to lose 20 wickets in a day for a meagre total of 243 runs. The combination of autumnal swinging conditions and a dry, seaming pitch made batting too difficult, although the spectacle of two high-class batsmen in John Crawley and Graham Gooch playing bravely defiant innings actually made for fascinating cricket of its kind. For all those who left Lord`s elated or depressed there were at least as many among the 28,000 completely stunned by the abruptness of Essex`s demolition by Peter Martin and Glen Chapple. Lancashire`s remarkable victory would have been by a comfortable 63 runs even if Crawley had been given out leg before first ball, as he might have been after Mike Atherton had been bowled driving at a similar inswinger of full length from Mark Ilott. Crawley was well forward, however, and he stayed to make 66 wonderfully skilful runs of the 139 that Lancashire had managed when he was sixth out, stumped after getting an inside edge to a drive after advancing to Peter Such`s perfectly controlled off-spin. Crawley`s was, arguably, at least the outstanding performance of a bowlers` match. He hit seven fours but his scoring rate of a run every two balls emphasised how hard it was to time the ball. Mike Watkinson would have batted first and damn the statistics and, for all Lancashire`s apparently feeble total of 186, he would have been proved right. It is no bad thing at least that the side taking first strike should have won for the first time in 11 NatWest finals. Jason Gallian also did notably well in the first 18 overs of the innings, hitting two glorious shots through the covers off Neil Williams - the only bowler to suffer all day before he went off with a thigh injury in the midst of the 40th over. Gallian was the first of three wickets for Ronnie Irani, who used the conditions as well as anyone before Chapple and again showed his flair for the big occasion. So, too, did his former team-mate, Ian Austin, who drove Paul Grayson for six as Lancashire eked all they could from their fading innings. Their experience showed in the way that at least they used all 60 overs before Gary Yates was run out off the last ball. Yates never got a chance to bowl. Martin, though he could not better the veteran Gooch, curled his outswingers past the right- handers (a left-hander would have helped Essex) and three times found the outside edge in the first 13 overs. Austin nipped the ball back up the slope and sometimes down it in an almost equally demanding spell but it was when Chapple came on from the Nursery End in his stead that it became obvious that the Essex decline was terminal. They had bowled and fielded with such zest and confidence, Ashley Cowan confirming his promise and Nasser Hussain setting an outstanding example at backward point. But with Hussain already in Martin`s bag, victim of a brilliant low catch by Warren Hegg, they were swept away like so many autumn leaves by Chapple`s springy combination of late swing and nip off the pitch. The balls which Robert Rollins, Cowan and Such received first ball might all have bowled Don Bradman as they apparently homed in on the leg stump, only to hit the off. In six overs and two balls either side of tea on a cool, grey evening, Chapple thus propelled himself back into contention as a Test bowler. Before the game he would not have been chosen for either of the winter tours: this morning he will be discussed as a candidate for them both. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph ================================>More..... 9 September 1996 Pain barrier halts shattered Gooch By Mark Nicholas THERE seemed no obvious reason, as lunch settled on Saturday afternoon, not to proceed as planned with the text for this column. It was to be another of those valedictory things in praise of the enduring excellence and enthusiasm of "Goochie" - Essex man from top to toe. Forty-three years and still rockin` and rollin` in the shires, Graham Gooch spring-chickened his way around the Lord`s turf he loves so well during the morning and appeared perfectly likely to win the match with that broadest of bats at about the time his audience was gin and tonicking the early evening. But, said Robert Burns, the best laid schemes o` mice an` men get scuppered . . . and hard as Gooch worked for those painful 10 runs, perhaps the most painful of his long glorious contribution to Essex cricket, there was nowt even he could do to stop the scuppering. To see the great rock, the ballast for so long of so much in English cricket, hang his head as he received his losing medal amid the gloating chants of "Lanky, Lankyshire" was to see a proud man dismayed by the humiliation. It was, no doubt at all, an extraordinary reversal. When Gooch fell athletically low to his right at slip and held on to Graham Lloyd`s edged push stroke, there seemed for once to be no way back for Lancashire, the most resilient knockout team in the land. Gooch threw the ball to the sky and high-fived his fledglings as he sensed the importance of the Lloyd capture. Soon afterwards, Gooch dived at cover to alter the course of a John Crawley drive; soon after that he was a-huggin` and a- slappin` a man less than half his age, Ashley Cowan, who clung on to Ian Austin`s aerial thump in the shadow of the old pavilion. Lancashire, though, had come through tighter scrapes than this and without fuss they engineered a route back into the game through old-fashioned and much-lamented top-class swing and seam bowling and because of it, the suffocation of Gooch`s dominant instinct. The maestro of the modern English age was given nothing on his pads to dismiss in that high and mighty way of his and next to nothing to drive with that contradictory combination of efficiency and flourish. By and large he was left with singles, save for just one nostalgic, imperious strike to the right-hand of cover and left with the disturbing sight of the crumbling Essex edifice and all of it from the best seat in the house, that of the non-striker. He might have crumbled earlier himself so cleverly did Austin examine the Gooch defence. One cutting this way and one cutting that, and all were pitched on the nibbling length that Gooch has never much enjoyed. Remember how Terry Alderman tortured him, well Austin made life pretty ghastly, too. Yet the old survivor survived, by virtue of his stubborn character as much as anything and with lady luck, of course, who has served him well in cup finals since the first in 1979, when he made a thunderous hundred. It was an utter surprise when a straight-forward medium dobber from the golden arm of Jason Gallian put him out of his misery. He was the seventh to fall, the total team effort was 33. His 10 of them had taken 55 balls, enough said. On the long and lonely walk back across the emerald field and through the eery, disbelieving Long Room before the final climb to the shattered dressing room, he must, surely he must, have let his mind wander to the glory days at Lord`s. The all-powerful 123 against the most feared West Indian bowling attack of all way back in 1980, the match-saving 183 against Hadlee`s New Zealand in 1986 and more recently - can it really be six years ago? - the 333 against India when he appeared unbeatable. His mind must have wondered how on earth the fickle cricketing gods had conspired to spoil what must be his last hurrah. It is a measure of the man that those sagging shoulders will rise above the disappointment and stand again to deliver for Essex at Chelmsford in their late charge for the championship title. The man, though, will not easily forget the shenanigans in north-west London on Saturday Sept 7, 1996, the day that the team for whom he has lived sank without trace. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)