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Lucas Cricket Club, Surrey Senior Cup champions, must be preening themselves after winning the inaugural Rothmans national cricket championship last weekend.

Favourites going into the three-day final at Chedwin Park, Lucas, despite a show of confidence, must have been secretly worried at stumps on the first day when St. Ann, led by a 282-run opening partnership between Leon Garrick and Ainsley Edwards, dashed to 305 for four at more than run-a-minute pace.

In a lovely comeback, however, Lucas, after a tentative start during which St. Ann reached 337 for four on the second morning, picked up the last six wickets for 49 runs, dismissed the Middlesex champions for 386, danced to 367 for two at the close of the day's play and with opening batsman Christopher Gayle leading the way with a record-breaking 271, with Delroy Morgan chipping in with 150, went on to a massive 685 with the scoreboard at one stage reading 435 for two.

In a batting treat, Garrick scored 169 runs with 22 boundaries off 222 deliveries, Edwards 112 with 18 boundaries off 160 deliveries, Gayle hit one six and 37 fours while facing 357 deliveries, and Morgan stroked 17 boundaries in an innings during which he faced 168 deliveries.

There is no question about it: the bat dominated the ball at Chedwin Park on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, there was hardly a defensive stroke throughout the three days and Jamaicans who have been lamenting the decline in the standard of the country's batsmen may now feel they are back on track - especially as Garrick and Gayle, two of the country's young batsmen, were the main performers.

As well as all four century-makers batted, however, as talented as Garrick and Gayle are, as promising as they may be, and although they did not select the opposing bowlers and should be commended for treating them as they deserved, the fans, their friends and their teammates should put things in perspective and not get carried away.

The bowling on both sides was weak and inexperienced, the pitch was a batsman's dream and, on top of that, with three Lucas players turning up late due to work and school exams, Garrick and Edwards had the good fortune of batting for the first session, not only against a Lucas attack which was below full strength, but also with only nine players in the field.

In the final analysis, however, it was good to see the Lucas batsmen were not intimidated by St. Ann's score, and remembering confidence is part of good batting, that is why the fans should be happy.

Regardless of the condition of a pitch and the quality of an attack, 386 runs, especially in a Cup final, is a challenging target and the Lucas batsmen, including Kevin Riley, Royan Smith, Ryan Wellington and Oneil Cruickshank, demonstrated supreme confidence in racing past it with some lovely strokeplay.