SCOTLAND'S loss could be Ayr's gain as Andy Goram waits for the dust to settle following his defection from the World Cup football squad in the United States.
Ayr registered Goram at the start of the season in the vague expectation that he might be able to fit in a couple of National League games and resume a cricket career put on hold by contractual small print during his seven-year stay at Rangers.
Now, having left Ibrox, he has the perfect opportunity to rekindle a lifelong love affair with cricket. He was good enough as a 14-year-old tyro pace bowler to attract Lancashire's interest when he was growing up in Oldham and played three times for Scotland.
On leaving Hibernian to join Rangers in 1991 - when the no-cricket clause was applied - he admitted: ``If I thought I could have made the same money playing cricket, I would have done so.''
Kevin Boyd, the Ayr secretary, said: ``We haven't heard from Andy yet, but if he's available we'd like him to play.''
``I remember sitting on his knee with my sisters and pulling his beard,'' recalled Primrose Worthington, W G's 93-year-old grand-daughter. ``We spent the summer holidays of 1915 with him, were woken up by zeppelins and he taught us to play bowls and croquet.'' The Champion died that same year.
Eight of the family, representing three generations, were at Lord's. ``Graces of a special sort,'' said the president of MCC, Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, in introducing an exhibition of ``epic, historical quality'', which will be open all season.
Loans from the family include an 1895 portrait by Ernest Breum and a watch presented to W G by Gloucestershire in his ``Indian summer'' year of 1895. Among a host of items, including bats, menus, pictures, and snuff-boxes, is the portmanteau which Grace took with him to an all-night confinement before scoring a double century at Cheltenham.
MCC will also mark the day of W G's birth when they play the Rest of the World on July 18 at Lord's in aid of the Diana, Princess of Wales, Memorial Fund.
Aid from Australia has been suspended in protest against the nuclear tests, it was announced in Melbourne yesterday. Australia are scheduled to play three Tests and a one-day series in Pakistan from late September, followed by a mini-World Cup in Bangladesh.
That distinction goes to Australian all-rounder Scott Browne, the first overseas player to represent Yorkshire side Hornsea. The club's sponsors are a local shopping and leisure village boasting a collection of birds of prey, including the owl, which now answers to the sobriquet Scottie. Any advance?