Cricket: Maddy makes Surrey suffer

Leicestershire 311 Surrey 291-8 Leicestershire win by 20 runs

SURREY, THE winners of last season's Benson and Hedges Cup, will not be going to Lord's. Instead it will be Leicestershire and Essex who will meet on 11 July to contest the final Benson and Hedges Cup final.

On a gusty day, the holders were essentially beaten by Darren Maddy, whose unbeaten century gave the home side's total of 311 an impregnability Surrey never looked like challenging until Adam Hollioake's late flurry momentarily quietened the premature celebrations.

It was game effort by Hollioake senior, whose 85 from 95 balls gave a one-sided game some late piquancy. Earlier his bowling figures of 8- 0-76-0, after he had won the toss, made almost fictional reading. To get within 20 runs was something not many contemplated when the visitors were 201 for 6 with 10 overs to go, and it needed a fine yorker by his opposite number, Chris Lewis, to get rid of him.

The semi-finals of any knockout cup are normally begrudging affairs. Sides are expected to give no quarter in the bid for further glory in front of a full house at Lord's. Yesterday, Surrey's cricket was so full of calamity and error that you half expected Stuart Hall to be doing the commentary and not the Sky team.

Maddy, the home side's champion with an unbeaten 120 from 138 balls, was particularly grateful for Surrey playing their joker(s) - about four of them as it happened. Twice dismissed off no-balls, the first when he was on 53, Maddy continued his stellar form in this competition.

Messed about by England in the recent Texaco series - he was given one match against South Africa, batting in the middle-order - the stocky right- hander averages 156 from his seven innings this season, including three centuries. That his latest was played out in front of England's one-day captain must have been particularly satisfying.

It was not a one-man show, however, and the home side were indebted to both to Lewis and Ben Smith, who, if anything, outplayed Maddy while the pair added 172 for the second wicket. Indeed, only the Hollioakes were able to match the pair's crisp array of strokes after Lewis, claimed three quick wickets, including Surrey's England trio.

As expected against his old club, Lewis's gestures were extravagant and when he had bowled the final ball, he went down on bended knee. It will be the first time Leicestershire have contested the B&H final since 1985, and he was doubtless thanking someone higher being other than Maddy for getting them there.

For once, winning a useful toss proved to be a double-edged sword. Deciding to put the home side in, Hollioake had not reckoned on the effect the strong wind would have on his bowlers, who were buffeted to the extent that line and length were the exception rather than the rule.

The loss of Ian Salisbury, who tore his groin with the first ball he bowled - he will be out for at at least a month and had considered not playing after apparently feeling a twinge earlier - did not help matters as Surrey had one of those days in the field best forgotten.

Under Hollioake, Surrey have long claimed to be a team without frontiers. Yesterday, they came across a team who dared to raise a barrier and then hold it firm.

New Zealand are to bring in a third spinner, Mark Priest, to join Daniel Vettori and Paul Wiseman for the third and deciding Test against Sri Lanka starting in Colombo today. Priest could take the place of the left-arm paceman Shayne O'Conner on a pitch expected to favour slow bowlers. The Sri Lankans, who levelled the series in Galle, have indicated they plan to use three spinners.