Cricket: Duo’s half centuries see Lancs share spoils

Sep 1 2007 by Our Correspondent, Liverpool Daily Post

HALF-CENTURIES by Paul Horton and Steven Croft helped Lancashire to secure a draw against Kent at Canterbury yesterday after an over-cautious declaration by Robert Key left the visitors needing an unrealistic 430 off a maximum of 82 overs on a slow, wearing wicket.

Croft hit 59 not out and Horton’s 69 took his aggregate for the last three games to 407 as the Old Trafford side finished on 208 for 3.

The fortitude and excellent technique of the pair contrasted with the approach of one or two of Lancashire’s senior players. Mark Chilton fenced at a lifter from Martin Saggers just after lunch and V V S Laxman ran himself out when the result of the match was still in doubt.

Stuart Law, by contrast, was simply unlucky. The Queenslander reached 1,000 runs for the season – the fourth time he has achieved this landmark for Lancashire – before receiving a painful blow from Saggers which split his finger.

Undaunted, he returned to the fray when Laxman departed and his unbeaten, unfussy 29 was a typically savvy piece of cricket from an outstanding player.

A little bruised therefore, and lacking their match-winning spin bowler, Muttiah Muralitharan, who flies back to Sri Lanka today, Lancashire will arrive in Blackpool for their four-day match against Durham next Thursday with their hopes of winning the championship intact.

The 10 points Mark Chilton’s team earned for their efforts at Canterbury leaves them 18 behind the current leaders, Yorkshire, with a game in hand and six-and-a-half shy of Durham who defeated Worcestershire at the Riverside.

But the Old Trafford side may need two victories from their last three games to win the title and they will need to accomplish this difficult feat without their most penetrative bowler.

“This game proved we can compete on any sort of surface,” said Law, “That wicket was completely foreign to what we normally play on. Oliver Newby bowled well and both Paul Horton and Steven Croft took big steps forward again”.

Kent lost four wickets in adding 75 in 11.4 entertaining overs before Robert Key’s declaration. Croft claimed his first championship victim when he bowled Joe Denly, and Oliver Newby removed Matthew Walker and Simon Cook just before the home skipper at last called his players in.

Lancashire have included Tom Smith, Simon Marshall and Gareth Cross in their fourteen-man squad for today Pro40 game against Warwickshire.

LANCASHIRE SQUAD (for Edgbaston): Chilton, Horton, Laxman, Law, Croft, Cross, Sutton, Cork, Chapple, Mahmood, Marshall, Smith, Newby, Keedy.