Date-stamped : 01 Jul97 - 10:16
Smith and Lewis add to swinging reputation

By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Luton

Final  day  of  four: Gloucestershire (180-7) drew with Northants
(58-6)

THESE are the sort of days on which  close  contenders   for  the
County Championship  tend  to look back with regret. Kevin Curran
was already beginning to show a  little   more   resistance  than
his  col- leagues, perhaps,  but the fact is that when light rain
arrived shortly before 5pm, Gloucestershire had  Northamptonshire
on toast at  26  for five, their target of 181 having disappeared
over the Chilterns. The next 22 overs were lost and when the game
resumed only seven overs and five balls remained.

The   ball  always  swings at Wardown Park. Northants have played
here for 24 years now, so they should know, but  they   were  un-
wound  as easily as a ball of string by Mike Smith`s in-swing and
and the no less dangerous out-swing of Jon  Lewis.  Both  pitched
the  ball  up  and  moved it late at brisk  medium  pace, getting
their  wickets  with bowleds and lbws  after  Northants had  tak-
en  theirs  mainly  by  moving  the ball off the seam and holding
their slip catches.

Smith picked up his third lbw with three  overs  left:  a  timely
performance, but he would have journeyed still more cheerfully to
Old Trafford for England`s nets this afternoon if  he  and  Lewis
had  been able to finish the job. His 21-year-old opening partner
bowled very well too. Rejected after one  season  at  Northampton
three  years  ago, he now uses his 6ft 2in in a busy, rocking ac-
tion.

Gloucestershire were put in, naturally. Twelve  points  were   at
stake  for   a  one-innings win, three each for a draw, after the
com- plete loss of the first three days. Both captains were  anx-
ious   to  play.  After all, Essex and Glamorgan have leapfrogged
Gloucestershire and Northants  have yet to win a game. The condi-
tions were said to be barely fit for play, but there was  no  ev-
idence  of  that  as fielders  ran  about  without  slipping  and
wickets fell at a suitably Lutonian rate.

A  lunchtime  score  of  62 for four,  after  a  cold  and cloudy
morning was, in  fact,  nothing  exceptional and  even  Northamp-
tonshire`s  18  for  five,  as  they chased a target of 181 in 42
overs to win  after  Mark Alleyne`s teatime  declaration,  has  a
richer precedent.

This   was  the  scene, two seasons ago, of 30 wickets falling on
the first day, which made it a little surprising that it  was not
until  the  seventh  over  that  Mohammad  Akram  found  the edge
of Tony Wright`s bat with a ball which lifted  and  left  him  to
give   Tony   Penberthy the first of three smart catches at third
slip.

Nick  Trainor  dug in with determination while  Monte  Lynch  and
Curran,  two  of  the older adverseries on the  circuit, indulged
in  a brief, flamboyant duel. In two overs,  amid  much  leaving,
prodding  and  groping,  Lynch  cut  to  backward  point, clipped
through midwick- et, hooked  high  through the hands of a sprawl-
ing long leg, drove through extra cover, and nibbled deliberately
along the ground  though the gully for five fours  before  edging
to second slip.

Much   the   most  robust batting of the day thereafter came in a
nine-over spell in mid-afternoon in which  the  two left-handers,
Jack Russell from Stroud and Shaun Young from Tasmania, showed an
equal fa- cility for clumping the ball into open  spaces,  mainly
on  the  leg side.

Russell,  as usual, played the innings his side wanted, making 31
off 37 balls. Young, playing the ball late  and  beautifully  re-
laxed in his stance and backlift, hit eight fours.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/)

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