By Scyld Berry
Derbys are 92 for 7 wickets
SIMPLY by calling correctly in the prelude to the NatWest Trophy at Lord's, Lancashire captain Wasim Akram took a large step towards emulating Warwickshire's unique achievement in 1994 of winning three domestic trophies in one season.
For the first time in a September cup final, the Lord's pitch was protected by the new hover, rather than conventional covers. Yet, winning the toss, and with it the right to bowl first in conditions likely to help seamers, was once again a significant advantage.
Eleven of the last 12 NatWest Trophy finals have been won by the side batting second, a tendency which has threatened to rob cricket of its sobriquet as a game of uncertainty.
Dominic Cork admitted to being ``a little bit disappointed'' when he lost the toss and was asked to bat, which may prove fit to rank among great English understatements.
Almost 24 hours after landing back in England after his return from Australia's training camp in Brisbane, Derbyshire's opening batsman, Michael Slater, was thus able to take the field of Lord's for the first time since he scored his maiden Test hundred on the ground in 1993.
His previous knock had been in the nets at Brisbane, when Glenn McGrath had pulled up while bowling at him and suffered a groin strain which offers England a certain hope for the Ashes series.
While Slater's flight back from Australia was first-class, his return to Lord's was not so comfortable. The ball swung lavishly for Akram and Peter Martin, often too much so, as in the Benson and Hedges final earlier this year. Leicestershire's bowlers on that occasion had been carried away by the sight of the movement available and had lost the discipline required to make anything of it.
If the weather for today proves as bad as forecast, the match may not be concluded. The side batting second - Lancashire, that is will have to bat for a minimum of 10 overs for the cricket to decide the result. Otherwise, it will have to be decided by a bowl-out, of five bowlers per side, or if that is impossible, by the toss of a coin; or, better still, the trophy will be pragmatically shared if no outcome can be achieved on the field.
Aside from the NatWest Trophy, it would make a remarkable season for Lancashire if they can take the AXA League, which they are poised to do, and the County Championship, for the first time outright since 1934.
With two games left for everyone to play, Lancashire are eight points behind leaders Leicestershire, and three behind Surrey.
It would make a triumphant end for their captain, Akram, if he should retire at the end of the season. But he has recently decided that he does not want to step down after all, which may cause complications at Old Trafford.
Lancashire have plenty of seam bowlers apart from their captain, but no match-winning spinner. Hence the movement within the club to sign either the Australian leg-spinner, Stuart MacGill, or else, since they already have a young leg-spinner of their own in Chris Schofield, the Sri Lankan off-spinner - if that is an adequate term - Muttiah Muralitharan.
Three other counties are understood to be interested in signing Muralitharan for next season: Kent, owing to their relationship with Aravinda de Silva; Leicestershire, who have ambition but no experienced spinner; and Northamptonshire, who have the money to sign players but cannot assemble a team.
Sri Lanka's manager, Ranjit Fernando, has said that Muralitharan could turn the ball on the M4. Next season he might be turning it somewhere near the M63.
Day 2: First leg of treble a breeze for Lancashire
IT took them two days but Lancashire duly won the NatWest Trophy final, their seventh 60-over trophy, with a comfort which suggested that they would have beaten Derbyshire whatever the weather and whoever won the toss, writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins.
In terms of overs it was the shortest 60-over final yet, 66.2, and if they win their AXA League game today, Lancashire can turn their attention to the biggest prize of all with two trophies in the bag and a genuine chance of emulating Warwickshire's unprecedented treble three years ago.
John Crawley, with all the confidence of a batsman averaging 70 in first-class cricket and playing with wonderful fluency on both sides of the wicket, hit 11 fours after Dominic Cork had uprooted Mike Atherton's off stump with what truly was a corker in the 10th over. Still 81 from their target with the ball moving about no less on a cloudy morning than it had for Peter Martin and the man of the match, Ian Austin, on Saturday, Lancashire were still some way from home, but not for long.
While Crawley punished every loose ball, Neil Fairbrother had a brief look at the bowling before punishing Kevin Dean with a succession of booming off-drives. He celebrated his record 10th Lord's final and his recall to England's one-day side with an innings of immense authority.
If this is to be Wasim Akram's final season at Old Trafford after 11 years it is already guaranteed to be a memorable one. He played only a minor part in the nine-wicket victory - indeed his relative waywardness with the new ball helped Derbyshire to make their deceptively good start - but he had performed one important role by winning the toss when the rain had finally spent itself on Saturday afternoon and he took two of the three wickets to fall yesterday morning when the game resumed in an atmosphere of inevitable anti-climax.
The first of them, indeed, more or less settled the match for if Derbyshire were to have any realistic hope of turning the game from their perilous overnight score of 92 for seven there simply had to be some inspiration from their captain. Cork had done no more than survive as darkness closed in on a dank Saturday evening and only two had been added yesterday before a crowd reduced to a sixth of the original 30,000, when Wasim cut a ball sharply back from the Pavilion End. It seemed to brush thigh pad rather than bat but George Sharp had discerned an inside edge and that was almost that.
Vince Clarke played three cracking drives off Wasim to show what might have been on a sunnier and a luckier day, but a total of 108 was probably 70 short of allowing Derbyshire a serious chance. Martin and Austin had swept through their batting on Saturday like a gust of wind scattering autumn leaves.
It all happened so suddenly after the long wait for the weather and a bold and entertaining opening partnership of 70 in 19 overs by Michael Slater and Kim Barnett. How the hearts of Derbyshire folk must have leapt as Barnett, striking freely through the covers, and Slater, with a quick-footed panache which is all his own, made up for the lost hours, but a square-driven six over cover by Slater in the 18th over turned out to be the last hurrah. Austin, doing his job with poker-faced efficiency, had already brought the innings to order and from the moment that Slater whipped across a straight ball it became Lancashire's match.
There is no weakness in the Lancashire attack, although this time it was Austin and the equally reliable Martin who exploited profuse movement through the air, at one point taking seven wickets for 11 in a reprise of Glen Chapple's spell against Essex two years ago.
This was the third final in five years to have gone into a second day because of rain on the first. Next year's final, a week earlier, deserves kinder weather but the place of the NatWest in the reformed programme from 2000 needs to be carefully considered at next month's meeting of the First Class Forum. Since 1963 the 65 or 60-over final has given the county season a natural climax but if the there is to be only one knockout competition, July is surely the month to open the Grace Gates to the members who underpin the county game.
Wasim Akram said winning the toss was crucial to his side's success, but ``if they could have reached a total of 180 or 190, it could have been a different game''.
He added: ``We knew their middle order was young and inexperienced and Ian Austin and Peter Martin bowled brilliantly, as they have done all season. I'm just glad they have been picked for England. I have been saying for the last two years that they should play for England.''
Austin said: ``Lord's suits my game, it always offers a little bit off the seam. It will look on paper like a comfortable victory but I put it down to hard work over the year.''