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1. All matches are 20 overs per side, with the teams divided into three groups – North (Derbyshire, Durham, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire), Midlands/West/Wales (Glamorgan, Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire, Somerset, Warwickshire, Worcestershire), and South (Essex, Hampshire, Kent, Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex).2. Matches start at 5.30pm (although there might be some changes to fit in with television schedules), with a 15-minute interval before the start of the second innings at 7.00pm.3. Each innings should last no longer than 75 minutes.4. Teams will incur a six-run penalty if they fail to bowl the full 20 overs within the 75 minutes.5. New batsmen must be in position within 90 seconds of a wicket falling.6. Only two fielders are allowed outside an inner circle during the first six overs of a team’s innings.7. Bowlers are permitted a maximum of a fifth of the total overs in a completed innings (ie four overs if there is no delay or interruption caused by rain).8. Umpires can impose a five-run penalty for time-wasting by batsmen. They are expected to be ready as soon as the bowler is ready.9. No-balls will be penalised by a free-hit next ball with standard rules on no-ball dismissals applying.10. Each side must face a minimum of five overs for a match to be valid. The Duckworth-Lewis method will be used to calculate run targets in rain-affected games.11. The three group winners and best second-placed team will progress to the semi-finals/final day on July 19.12. The overall winners will receive £42,000, the runners-up £21,000 and the losing semi-finalists £10,000 each.

Makhaya Ntini and Mfuneko Ngam became the first African players to receive one of South African cricket’s highest awards on Monday when they were named among five 2001 Cricketers of the Year.Ntini and Ngam were joined by Shaun Pollock, Neil McKenzie and Nicky Boje as the personal choices of Colin Bryden, editor of the Mutual and Federal South African Cricket Annual.The significance of the honour bestowed upon Ntini and Ngam is unmistakable. Just 10 years after South African cricket finally unified after more than a century during which it had been split along racial lines, African players have begun to make an impact on the game on the field. There is clearly no tokenism about their selections, despite the fact that Ngam has played in just three Test matches and has still to recover from shoulder and leg injuries which kept him out of South Africa’s tour of the West Indies this year.Simply put, Ngam is the most exciting fast bowling talent to emerge in South Africa since Allan Donald and the sense of anticipation ahead of his Test debut against New Zealand at the Wanderers last summer did not recognise the colour of his skin.It was perhaps fitting that the guest speaker at the dinner on Monday at which the awards were announced was Jimmy Adams, the former West Indian captain now playing for Free State. Adams made the point that as a youngster growing up in Jamaica, he simply did not believe it was possible to play cricket with and against South Africans. In a delicious twist of irony, Adams made his Test debut against South Africa in Barbardos in 1992.For Ntini, the award is recognition of the impressive role he played in last summer’s Test matches, bowling long spells at considerable pace to take 23 wickets in six Test matches against New Zealand and Sri Lanka. His consistency provided an ideal foil behind striking power of Donald, Pollock, Ngam and Jacques Kallis and his stamina was almost exhausting to behold.Boje is honoured for a remarkable year which started during South Africa’s 2000 tour of India where he established himself as the country’s first choice Test and One-Day spinner as well as an all-rounder of genuine quality. Ironically, injury opened the door for Claude Henderson to stake a claim and Boje faces competition as he seeks to make his way back.McKenzie, meanwhile, grew in stature after a nervous start to his Test career and he has now pinned down a middle order place so firmly that that he has become an automatic choice. Well-liked, McKenzie may well be a future South African captain.Pollock, finally, is recognised for the extraordinary manner with which he led the side after Hansie Cronje was forced to step down. He matured as a batsman last summer to confirm himself as one of the game’s leading all-rounders. This was his third award and probably his most deserved.

ScorecardTom Abell recorded his maiden first-class hundred•Getty Images

The loveliest event of this day’s cricket was one which Somerset supporters knew would occur at some time but which they feared they would not witness. At noon Tom Abell drove Mason Crane through the covers for three runs. His score went from 99 to 102 and he thereby reached his maiden first-class century.The first person to congratulate Abell – indeed, an enveloping hug was deemed appropriate – was his opening partner, Marcus Trescothick, who had scored the 57th century of his first-class career only ten minutes previously. Abell was three months old when Trescothick notched his own first hundred against Surrey at Bath in 1994. The pair eventually put on 272 against Hampshire, one short of the first-wicket record for matches between the counties, and Tom Cooper later became the third Somerset centurion. By the close the home side’s lead over Hampshire had been extended to 329 on what seems a flat pitch, although Dawson’s three late wickets suggested it was beginning to turn.

‘Loudest celebration I’ve ever heard’

Marcus Trescothick: “I felt a bit like I was the warm up act today, just to get a hundred before so the crowd could say well played to me. Then when Tom got his century the noise was the biggest celebration I have heard for a hundred. He has worked hard all season and has got into a good position and we have been bowled out leaving him not out, but this time you could hear the pleasure in everybody’s voices and the pleasure they were feeling. I could hear the noise from the changing room and it was the loudest I have ever heard it and it was a real nice moment.
“I think we are building a formidable partnership, working together a lot more and you just get used to how each other operates. I try to give him as much knowledge and help as much as I can do but he looks after himself. If he plays in the fashion he has today then he doesn’t need a great deal of telling what to do. He works it out for himself and goes ahead and does it.
“It’s delightful to see because not only is he playing so well you get the next generation of the team coming through combining with the Overtons and Lewis Gregory and others like that. To see the next generation succeeding gives you great pride in the knowledge that you are going to leave the club in good hands.
“I played well and really enjoyed batting out there. We needed a good partnership to get ourselves going and try to get ahead of the game. The position we are in now having bowled them out for 240 was a great achievement and then to bat as long as we can is what we have achieved and something we set out to do from the start. It hasn’t been the easiest of seasons and last week was probably the toughest game so far so to bounce back and get ourselves into the position we are now is great but there is still a lot of work to do.”
Tom Abell: “It’s been a little while coming, but I’m absolutely delighted, relieved and pretty ecstatic to get my first one. It was a special feeling when I managed to get past the hundred mark, because there have been a few times where I haven’t quite managed to do it.
“It’s always nice when you hear those sorts of things on the Tannoy – and hopefully there are a few more landmarks around the corner. I think one of the things that has contributed to that desperation, I guess, to get the three figures is that, quite a few times, I’ve got in and made a fifty but then got out. So it’s pleasing to go on and make a significant contribution and help to get ourselves ahead of the game.”

The sporting press may say that Hampshire’s bowlers stuck to their task in difficult circumstances and such a judgement will be true enough. But when three of the four batsmen you dismiss have scored hundreds, it is very clear what sort of a day it has been. James Hildreth’s fine 71 was little but a footnote to the play. Hampshire’s batsmen got their side into this mess and they will have to get them out of it. Otherwise, James Vince’s side will become warm favourites for relegation ahead of the visit of the pitiless Yorkshiremen next week.Yet for all that Cooper’s first hundred for Somerset received the crowd’s applause – and the ECB may care to note that yet another four-day game has been very well attended – it was the 21-year-old Abell and his partnership with Trescothick that commanded the warmest ovations. Abell was born in Taunton and attended Taunton School. He also played, and occasionally still plays, his club cricket for Taunton, so you could call him a local lad. One imagines that his three-year course at Exeter University was an awfully big adventure. The Taunton crowd rose to him because he is one of their own and that will always matter to county cricket supporters.For his part, Keynsham-born Trescothick is loved beyond reason or measure on this ground. He is a steadfast cricketer who, rather than retiring when his England days were done, returned to county cricket and still derives deep joy from it. He has faced down tougher enemies than fast bowlers. His happiness at reaching his century was obvious and, for all his 39 years, rather boyish. His disappointment when he lost his leg stump to Fidel Edwards when he had made 153 was plain as well. Trescothick has just signed a new one-year contract simply because he wants to play professional cricket for Somerset as long as he can.Trescothick’s batting is characterised by his clattering pulls to square leg or his fearsome cover drives; Abell’s by his classical correctness, the quiet perfection of his strokes and the time he has to play them. You would pay to watch him drive off the back foot. Jack Brooks twice had him caught in the slips at Headingley last week but there is no shame in that. Hampshire’s bowlers could not deal with Abell until Gareth Berg had him leg before on the back foot for 131 half an hour after lunch. Then the crowd stood to him again and he waved back to them, which was also good to see.And indeed, they stood and applauded in all the pavilions on this ground, for Taunton is well-endowed in such structures. There is a Colin Atkinson pavilion, an Ondaatje pavilion and an Andy Caddick pavilion. In the winter they knocked the much-loved Old Pavilion down and have replaced it with a viewing area, a stand reserved for subscribers of some sort and a media centre. They have named the new building….the Somerset Pavilion. It rather reminds one of Robert Grant’s 1833 hymn “O worship the King” which contains the phrase “pavilioned in splendour”, itself taken as the title of a fine cricket book by A A Thomson.On a less-exalted level Somerset’s pavophilia recalls a famous routine of the magician and comedian Tommy Cooper whereby he performed the trick of placing a cylinder over a wine bottle and making the bottle disappear. Before long everything would go “wrong” and there would be wine bottles appearing from cylinders all over the table while Cooper, himself, acted increasingly manic. It now seems that all Somerset need to do these days is throw up some scaffolding and a pavilion will appear. It is very like them.For Hampshire’s supporters this was a day on which they needed to show unquestioning loyalty; for Somerset’s, it was a Thursday, the memory of which they will treasure when the rain clouds roll down the Quantocks and into the Somerset combes like gun-smoke. But Tom Abell is not yet the answer to any vacancy that might occur in England squads. He is a talented young man learning how to play professional cricket.These, indeed, are Abell’s “lamb white days” and he has a right to remain “young and easy under the apple boughs” a while longer. Experience and responsibility will come soon enough. Abell has not even played at Lord’s, The Oval or Old Trafford yet, but he will surely do so. And as the leaves grow crisp upon the trees in the sharp, brittle light of early autumn, it was almost a reassurance to watch a batsman who, granted only a modicum of fortune, has years of cricket before him. We will remember this blue-domed day when Taunton was pavilioned in splendour and Tom was girded with praise.

A Glasgow Rangers blogger was left fuming over a decision made by Don Robertson in the first half of their game in the Premiership this afternoon.

The Lowdown: Fast start

Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s team made a fast start at Ibrox, with two goals from Alfredo Morelos and Fashion Sakala midway through the first half.

They looked energised after seeing Celtic draw 0-0 away at Hibernian in the earlier kick-off and were determined to get all three points on the board in order to close the gap at the top on their bitter rivals.

However, they let that two-goal lead slip in the second half and duly failed to capitalise on the Hoops’ slip-up earlier in the day.

The Latest: Robertson slammed

Taking to Twitter, renowned Rangers blogger Four Lads And A Dream was left fuming at the decision made by referee Robertson to only give Motherwell striker Joseph Efford a yellow card for a bad challenge on Connor Goldson.

They fumed: “Quite ridiculous challenge on Goldson, even this far away you can see it’s studs showing and catches Goldson. Yellow card not near enough.”

They continued after seeing another controversial decision: “That’s handball as well! Two big decisions both questionable from Robertson.”

The Verdict: Lucky boy

In a challenge which was described as ‘dangerous’ by Rangers’ official Twitter channel, Efford was a lucky boy not to walk.

The fact that his manager decided to take him off at half-time as well suggests that he thought the player was guilty and perhaps feared that he would get another yellow card.

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Having blown their two-goal lead, which they held at the time the challenge was made, the Light Blues may well wonder whether things would have turned out differently had Motherwell been reduced to 10 men for Efford’s challenge rather than seeing him get yellow.

In other news, Rangers are set to enjoy a big financial boost

	RP Singh teed off for his first six in international cricket © AFP

Lee’s rewind
India had lost a couple of quick wickets in the first session when Brett Lee steamed in to VVS Laxman. Lee was about to leap into his delivery stride when Laxman, possibly distracted by a fly or something behind the sightscreen, backed away. Lee stood surprised for a few moments before pretending to run backwards, as if he was rewinding the film. Laxman, who is never too far from an apologetic look, was one of many who let out a hearty smile.Friends reunited
It’s the first Test visit to Perth for Matthew Hayden since Justin Langer retired and Hayden’s leg injury has meant the pair has had plenty of time to spend together. They had dinner together on Thursday and shared something that has not been seen publicly for 12 months – a hug. The former partners embraced after a brief stint in the ABC commentary box so the moment could be caught on camera and posted on the broadcaster’s website.RP’s mighty swish
It was the penultimate ball before tea and RP Singh, who was facing Andrew Symonds, was expected to down the shutters. RP, though, decided it was time he smashed an international six. Planting his front foot out, he teed off like a golfer, lofting the ball over long-on. It was something he hadn’t managed in eight previous Tests, 38 ODIs and eight Twenty20s. The next delivery, pitched on leg stump, was kicked away nonchalantly before RP proudly strode back to the pavilion.Tortoise and hare
Mahendra Singh Dhoni had shelved his attacking shots in the national interest, taking 43 balls over 5 before his fire ignited briefly. India were pushing ahead cautiously when Dhoni broke free, launching himself at Michael Clarke and collecting a straight six which was more in tune with his usual method. However, he slipped back into a sombre mood until breaking out to hit his second six, which came off Symonds.Ishant digs it out
Australia had just broken through a nagging 51-run stand when Ishant Sharma, India’s No.11, walked in. His first-innings cameo in Sydney showed he could hit, but few would have expected him to dig out a dart-accurate yorker from Stuart Clark first up. Faced with one at 131kph, he juddered his bat down and the inside edge raced away to fine leg for four. Clark might have felt the effort was good enough to get a wicket; he saw Ishant grinning instead.Local relief
Australia had to take quick wickets in the first session and after a slow first half hour things looked up for the home team when Virender Sehwag sliced a drive to Michael Hussey at gully. Except he dropped it. At the time it felt like a costly miss, but Clark bowled Sehwag in the next over as India lost 4 for 46.

Gold League
Rawalpindi reached the top of the Gold League table with 21 points after they beat Faisalabad by 232 runs in their fourth-round Quaid-e-Azam Trophy Cricket Championship Gold League match at the Iqbal Stadium in Faisalabad.Resuming at their overnight score of 277 for 8, Rawalpindi, who have never won the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, added only eight more before being bowled out. Faisalabad, chasing 337, were bowled out for 104 in 32.5 overs with no batsman scoring even 20. Sohail Tanvir got 4 for 24 and ended with a match haul of 7 for 73. Najaf Shah and Yasir Arafat got three each and both ended with six for the match.Rawalpindi displaced Peshawar from the first position after Peshawar succumbed to a two-wicket defeat to Sialkot on January 26. Faisalabad remained at the bottom of the table with no points from their three matches.Rawalpindi will next play Karachi Urban at the National Stadium Karachi while Faisalabad will host Peshawar in the fifth round of the tournament starting February 1.A stubborn display by the Lahore Shalimar batsmen, coupled with poor light conditions, deprived Karachi Harbour of an outright victory as their match came to a draw on the final day at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.Lahore Shalimar were set a target of 383 and were 44 for no loss at the end of day three. But only 31.4 overs of play were possible on the final day and Lahore Shalimar ended at 176 for 3.The opening stand between Humayun Farhat and Ahmed Shehzad powered Lahore Shalimar to a 107-run start. Farhat hammered 59 off 61 balls with nine fours and a six while Shehzad made 42 off 77 balls with eight fours.Atif Maqbool got 2 for 71 with his offbreaks and Aamer Sajjad (35) was at the crease along with Arsalan Mir (11) when stumps were drawn.Karachi Harbour managed three points having gained a lead in the first innings. This takes their overall tally to 12 after four matches placing them fourth in the seven-team points table. A win would have given them nine points which would have enhanced their total to 18 and put them on par with Peshawar at second place.Silver League
A seventh-wicket partnership of 108 between Bilal Khilji and Kamran Hussain helped Multan earn a creditable draw against Abbottabadin their Silver League match at the Multan Cricket Stadium.Set a target of 321 Multan had made 71 for 3 at the end of day three. On the final day they batted just short of 86 overs and lost nine wickets to reach 291 at stumps.But a draw meant that Abbottabad had to be content with only the three points for gaining a first-innings lead. Multan, meanwhile, stay at the second spot in the table with 21 points to their credit.Kashif Naved, unbeaten overnight at 31, set the tempo for Multan’s fight for survival contributing 65 off 109 balls. Then, from 142 for 6, Khilji and Hussain pulled them out of trouble. Khilji remained unbeaten on 73 batting for almost four and a half hours while Hussain hit 51 off 100 balls.Sajid Shah, Abbottabad’s right-arm fast-medium bowler, took 3 for 52 that gave him a match haul of 9 for 100. Junaid Khan chipped in with three for 51 with his left-arm medium-fast bowling. Multan, who were demoted from the Gold League last season, must win against Islamabad in the fifth round at Diamond Club Ground in Islamabad if they are to make the Silver League final against the same side.

Scorecard

Sachin Tendulkar played some sparkling shots during his 74© Getty Images

In an absurdly laid-back opening for what promises to be an intense series, staged in a setting more English than sub-continental, the Indians cruised along merrily and racked up 298 for 4 against Pakistan A on the first day in Lahore. Led by half-centuries from the top four and, on a flat pitch on the slightly slow side, the Indians blunted the varied attack.Playing in the idyllic Bagh-e-Jinnah ground, a tranquil patch circumscribed with trees, in front of close to 500 spectators watching from behind pickets, the Indians, expectedly, chose to gain some batting practice ahead of the first Test in six days’ time. Two batsmen for whom the game mattered the most, Gautam Gambhir and Wasim Jaffer, ensured that the suspense lasted a bit longer – doing just enough to find their groove, but not enough to seal a Test berth – while two that followed, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar, revelled in the relaxed setting, cruising along to composed half-centuries as well.Faced with an opportunity to stake their claim, in abnormally chilly conditions, Gambhir and Jaffer began cautiously but soon overcame any threat posed by the four-pronged pace attack. Umar Gul, staking a claim for a Test recall, was guilty of bowling too short, on a surface not offering too much lift, while Rao Iftikhar Anjum and Yasir Arafat struggled to extract too much seam movement. Mohammad Irshad – similar to Shoaib Akhtar in action and not too far behind in speed – was the most threatening of the lot but Gambhir and Jaffer blunted all without too much fuss.Gambhir was the first to turn aggressor, latching on to anything slightly wide, ripping a couple of fierce cuts, and driving with customary verve. With the axe looming, he backed himself when the ball was there to be hit, cracking nine fours en route to his fifty. He fell soon after reaching the landmark but Jaffer picked up the baton and kept the scoreboard ticking. Unfurling some gorgeous cover-drives, and dissecting the fielders to a nicety, he was on his way to entering the sort of zone that has made him such a mighty force in domestic cricket back home. He was confident enough to attempt some cheeky glides, one ramped over the slip cordon, but fell victim to trying one too many, nicking a good-length cutter from Gul.Unlike the two openers, Dravid didn’t take any time to open out. With a picnic-atmosphere catching on as the game meandered, he unobtrusively motored along, mastering the faster bowlers, dismissing the spinners and racing to his half-century. Irshad was pulled with gusto while the two legspinners, Mansoor Amjad and Imran Farhat, were made to look inadequate. What Dravid began, Tendulkar continued and looked in spanking touch for little over two hours in the middle. There was a certain joy in watching colossal performers entertain a holiday crowd, classical strokeplay adorning a rustic setting. Tendulkar often couldn’t contain his boyish cheek, attempting paddle sweeps, and observing such a figure bask in a relatively obscure stage had a charm of its own.Amjad is definitely a promising bowler possessing the required weapons but had no clue when in one over Tendulkar decided to have some fun – steered through cover, whipped through midwicket and pulled square. Nothing could stop him, or so it seemed, until he under-edged a short and wide one from Arafat, looked back to see Zulqarnain, the wicketkeeper, pull off a beauty and without any hesitation, walked. Tendulkar had had his fun, Arafat, as he was to say later, had got his “dream wicket”, the Indians had got some valuable practice and an already peaceful Bagh-e-Jinnah got a bit quieter. A tour had started in utter calm, and one still had to come to grips with the fact that it’s India in Pakistan.How they were outGautam Gambhir c Rao b Irshad 53 (81 for 1)
Wasim Jaffer c Zulqarnain b Gul 58 (153 for 2)
Rahul Dravid c Raza b Farhat 63 (220 for 3)
Sachin Tendulkar c Zulqarnain b Arafat 74 (279 for 4)

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has told the Mumbai High Court that it has decided to cancel the tender for its television rights, and has indicated that it will initiate two new bids. ESPN-Star Sports, which had gone to court to challenge the BCCI’s decision to award the rights to Zee Telefilms, has withdrawn the case after the cricket board’s notification.The board’s representatives told the court that their tender with Zee was “not concluded”, as the draft letter sent by them had not been accepted by Zee, and negotiations were still on. They said that they would make arrangements to telecast the matches themselves, and float two new tenders – one for the rights of the next three series, and the other for the next four years.ESPN-Star withdrew its petition after the BCCI’s announcement, but Zee was furious. Zee’s lawyer asked the court to note that the ruling on the case itself had not yet been given, and that the surety amount of US$20million that the board had asked for had been given and accepted.Zee said it would initiate legal action against the board’s decision. Subhash Chandra, the company’s head, made allegations of connivance between the Board and ESPN-Star Sports: “The court could also see it clearly,” he claimed. “But since the petitioner ESPN-Star Sports, in collusion with the BCCI counsel, withdrew the petition, the court had no option than to record the statement and pass no order.”It is obvious that the board’s worries are far from over. To start with, what was expected to be a windfall season for Indian cricket is likely to begin in the red. The forthcoming series against Australia, which was expected to be a licence to print money, may well now end up in a deficit. But as a BCCI official admitted, that is the least of their concerns at the moment: “Our problems might have just begun.”

West Indies 240 and 418 for 7 (Sarwan 105, Chanderpaul 104) beat Australia 240 and 417 by three wicketsOmari Banks and Vasbert Drakes propelled West Indies to a nerve-wracking three-wicket victory on the final morning in Antigua, as Australia’s quest for an unprecedented clean sweep in the Caribbean came unstuck in the most thrilling fashion possible. Banks, who finished unbeaten on 47 in only his second Test, showed maturity beyond his 20 years, as he and Drakes overcame the early loss of Shivnarine Chanderpaul to knock off the 46 runs that remained of the highest fourth-innings chase in Test history.After a fractious and utterly compelling final session on Monday, the atmosphere in the Antigua Recreation Ground was unrecognisable this morning. If the teams had been able to reach a conclusion last night, West Indies would surely have won at a canter, but with a chastened and reinvigorated Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie charging in with a newish ball, there were no foregone conclusions on offer.

The moment of victory: Stuart MacGill is despondent as West Indies celebrate

All of the Caribbean feared the worst when Chanderpaul, whose stunning strokeplay had put the Aussies to flight, lasted just one more Brett Lee delivery. Coming round the wicket, Lee straightened one on off stump, and Chanderpaul nibbled a catch through to Adam Gilchrist. He was gone for a magnificent 104, but like Sarwan before him, he appeared to have left the job uncompleted.There are worse men to have coming in at No. 9 than Drakes, however. He and Banks drew the sting of Australia’s assault with a calmness that was in stark contrast to the chewed fingernails in the stands and dressing-rooms. Drakes was greeted by a ferocious bouncer from Lee, then miscued an exocet from Gillespie into no-man’s land behind the wicket, but in the eighth over of the day he flicked Lee for a much-needed boundary, and West Indies were up and running.In the same over, Banks opened his account for the day, before finally connecting with one of his flowing cover-drives, to beat a floundering Andy Bichel to the rope. With 27 still needed for victory, Steve Waugh recalled Stuart MacGill, who had been subjected to a drubbing on Monday evening. Immediately Banks flashed MacGill through the grasping hands of Matthew Hayden in the gully, and Justin Langer was unable to prevent another boundary.

Omari Banks: the hero of the final day

Then MacGill lobbed one into the slot, and Drakes hoofed it mightily over cow-corner for six – it was a decisive moment. In one blow, the crowd emerged from behind their metaphorical sofas, as the total passed 400 and the target ducked below 20 runs. Gillespie though wasn’t finished, and nearly decapitated Drakes with another perfectly directed bouncer, but Drakes responded with a fortuitous inside-edge to the fine-leg boundary.The teams took drinks with 11 runs still required, but when umpire Shepherd turned down MacGill’s stone-dead lbw appeal against Drakes, Australia’s last chance had gone. Banks slapped at a MacGill full-toss and edged down to fine leg for four, and it was left to Drakes to seal the win, with a spanking cut through point. West Indies had achieved the impossible – preserving their proud home record and breaking India’s 27-year-old record, to complete an astonishing run-glut of a series, in which 17 centuries were scored in four Tests.

Kent Spitfires cut Leicestershire’s lead at the top of the Norwich Union League first division to just two points after surviving yet another last ball finish to land a eight-run win against Yorkshire in Canterbury.Just two days after their last ball victory over Gloucestershire at Bristol, Spitfires managed to defend their disappointing 45-over total of 216 courtesy of a three wicket burst in four balls in the final over of the game by the league’s leading wicket-taker Martin Saggers.With Phoenix needing 13 runs for a victory that would have hauled them clear of the relegation dogfight, Saggers ran in to remove the off stump of David Byas with his second ball, york Richard Dawson with his next and then have Richard Blakey caught on the long-off boundary to secure Kent’s ninth win of the campaign.The hosts looked as good as beaten at the mid-way point of the reply as Darren Lehmann and Anthony McGrath reached 89 for two, but in-form Lehmann made a vital misjudgement in reverse sweeping Min Patel to top edge a catch to fly slip.McGrath, who was dropped on seven after skying a chance to deep cover, re-grouped by way of a fourth wicket stand worth 108 in 21 overs with Craig White.Just 62 were required with 10 overs to go and, with seven wickets in hand, a partisan St Lawrence crowd of 4,000 were watching in silence as their title hopes seemingly slid away.But then White holed out to long off and McGrath, after reaching his maiden league century from 139-balls, ran himself out to revive Kent’s victory and title hopes once again.The hosts were probably 20 short of what they perceived to be a defendable total as only James Hockley with 66 from 82-balls managed to post a half-century on a slow but true pitch.Hockley was one of three wickets taken by Lehmann’s left arm spin in a burst of three for five in eight balls that ripped the heart out of the home middle order batting.