Date-stamped : 10 Jul95 - 14:29
Lancashire tailspin costs place at top

By Brian Bearshaw at Old Trafford

Northants (201) bt Lancs (200-8) by 1 run

LANCASHIRE lost when they were unable to score four runs from the
final  over  for a victory that would have lifted them into joint
top place with Glamorgan.  At 167 for three  in  the  33rd  over,
they  looked  to  be  cruising, but  spinners  Anil Kumble, three
for 30, and Rob Bailey, two for 14, took five   wickets  for   32
runs  in  seven  overs  to  give Northamptonshire their first win
of the season.  Partnerships of 60 for the first wicket   between
Mike   Atherton  and  Nick  Speak,  and  67 for the third between
John Crawley and Neil Fairbrother made victory look a  formality.
Then  came  the spinners to tempt and tease Lancashire to defeat.
Crawley batted from the 12th to the last  over.  He   drove   the
second ball from Bailey into cover`s hands after scoring 53 in 68
balls and Gary Yates was left with what  seemed  an   undemanding
three  runs  from  four balls. He, however, managed only a single
off the last ball to the disappointment of a  huge   section   of
the  7,700  crowd.   Northamptonshire,  championship leaders  but
without  a  win  in seven  Sunday  games,  were jubilant in over-
coming  a  team  who had lost only one of 15 limited-overs games.
Lancashire also had the misfortune to  lose  Peter  Martin   with
damaged ankle ligaments, an injury which is likely to put him out
of the game for at least four weeks.  Martin went over on his an-
kle while fielding  on  the  boundary edge  in  the  fifth  over.
Play was held up for several minutes while physiotherapist Laurie
Brown,  head coach  David  Lloyd  and the Red Cross attended him.
The ankle was strapped and Martin was tak en from the field in  a
wheelchair.

Martin had bowled two overs and Lancashire, who  had  gone   into
the match with only five bowlers, needed one of the five batsmen,
Atherton, Speak, Crawley, Fairbrother and Graham Lloyd  to   bowl
the  other  six  overs.   Destiny,  and  captain  Mike Watkinson,
beckoned Fairbrother. After all,  it is his benefit year  and  he
has  vast  experience.  This  was his 161st Sunday game,  he  has
scored  four  centuries  and  25 fifties.  As  a  bowler  he  has
sent  down   just   two  overs  in  those  games spread  over  14
seasons,  but that did not seem evident  when  he  delivered  six
left-arm overs of indefinite speed to take the im- portant wicket
of Alan Fordham while conceding only 33  runs.   Northamptonshire
got  off  to  a poor  start.  Richard Montgomerie went cheaply to
Wasim Akram for the third time in four days - two and 12  in  the
championship  -  and  by  the 24th over they  had  lost the first
four batsmen for 98 runs.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) <END>
Contributed by Gazza (G.Hunt@bath.ac.uk)