JOHN CRAWLEY may not have been uppermost in the minds of the England selectors when they sat down on Saturday to choose their squad for the Texaco Trophy and maybe he was trying to prove a point yesterday.

He has now scored more than 400 runs in one-day competitions this season, at an average of more than 50, and his innings of exactly 100 at Canterbury was of the highest order.

It was his best in the competition and it also enabled Lancashire to end Kent's winning start and leapfrog them in the table in the process.

Ignore the coloured clothing and the white ball, and it was just like days gone by at a resplendent St Lawrence Ground. All the ingredients were present for an afternoon of rich entertainment as the two most successful exponents of the one-day game locked horns once again: both are in the quarter-finals of the Benson and Hedges Cup and both were unbeaten in the AXA League.

But something had to give and it was Lancashire who finally prevailed in a match which Kent could have won until Trevor Ward's untimely exit in the 37th over.

Lancashire were without the injured Mike Atherton and they made an unpropitious start when Mike Watkinson nibbled at one early on. Enter Crawley. He scored freely on both sides of the wicket, and his only blemish in an otherwise chanceless display was when he had made 60 and Nigel Llong grassed a steepler. His hundred came from 98 balls and included two sixes and seven fours.

But Ward obviously thought whatever you do, I can do just as well. He also batted with great aplomb, to score his fourth century in the competition, making his runs from 119 deliveries. When Ward and Carl Hooper were together and going well, Kent were still very much in the hunt. But Crawley was having one of those days. When Hooper advanced too far from the non-striker's end, the Lancastrian swooped and threw down Hooper's wicket with the batsman stranded.

When Ward fell to a well-judged catch by Wasim Akram, Kent still needed 34 runs from 22 balls, but with him went Kent's hopes as the middle and lower order tamely subsided.