Steven Finn has been given the all-clear to join England’s Test tour of South Africa after proving his fitness in a pair of hostile displays for England Lions in the UAE.Finn, who was ruled out of England’s Test series against Pakistan in October with a bone-stress injury in his left foot, bowled with pace and incision during two Twenty20 fixtures in Dubai over the weekend, and will link up with the Test team in Potchefstroom on Monday.The news is a significant boost to England’s hopes of challenging South Africa, the No.1-ranked Test nation, in their own conditions. Finn was initially left out of the 16-man tour party, with England’s selectors deciding they did not want to risk travelling with any players who were unlikely to be fit in time for the first Test.Finn is still unlikely to be ready to play at Durban on Boxing Day, where Surrey’s new signing, Mark Footitt, is expected to make his debut alongside the new-ball pairing of James Anderson and Stuart Broad, with Ben Stokes, the allrounder, on course to prove his own fitness after suffering a shoulder injury in Sharjah last month.However, Finn’s sharpness was not in doubt during his comeback performances against Pakistan A this weekend, albeit in four-over performances. He picked up 3 for 22 in the opening match and added a further wicket yesterday, and believes he will be ready to challenge for a Test recall at Cape Town in the New Year.Steven Finn impressed for England Lions in his comeback from a foot injury•Chris Whiteoak

“I’ve been really pleased with the way things have gone with the Lions,” Finn said. “I’ve bowled my overs and my foot has come through fine. I’m excited by the prospect of linking up with the team out in South Africa.”Finn’s injury had been an especially untimely setback following his comeback to the Test team during the Ashes last summer. He was recalled for the third Test at Edgbaston, having ironed out the problems in his bowling action that had caused him to be branded “unselectable” during the whitewash tour of Australia in 2013-14, and starred with eight wickets in a series-turning eight-wicket victory, including 6 for 47 in the first innings.”It’s fantastic news,” said Jonny Bairstow, the England wicketkeeper who looks set to retain his place for the Durban Test after replacing Jos Buttler during the Pakistan series. “Finny coming back after what was a really disappointing injury for him after bowling a fantastic spell in Sharjah and really hitting his straps over there.”Everyone is delighted to see Finny back to fitness. He’s been bowling well over in the UAE from what we’ve heard. Having him joining the camp tonight is a massive boost for all of us; he’s a really popular guy.”The skills that he brings and the difference of bowling he brings is unprecedented. He’s 6ft 7in and coming from that height there’s going to be a lot of pace and bounce which is another asset to us.”The first match of England’s tour starts on Tuesday in Potchefstroom, a three-day fixture against a South Africa Invitational XI.

Worcestershire, currently leading the National League Division One, falteredafter being put in to bat by strand-in captain Steve Rhodes against Leicestershire at the New Road ground, until they were restred by the weather from their predicament. Their 108-8 total made from 38 overs seemed to be hardly enough.With the Duckworth-Lewis system in application Leicestershire needed 118 runsto win. Then a downpour flooded the ground to the extent that umpires Roy Palmer and Tony Clarkson could do noithing other that abandon play shortly after 5.30 p.m. That left each side with 2 points much to the chagrin of Leicestershire who would have fancied their chances of reducing the eight points margin between themselves and their rivals.

Still there’s always Wednesday when these two counties face each other againin the NatWest Trophy – provided that Worcestershire get through their replay with Gloucestershire the day before – and Leicestershire must be heightened bytheir opponents’ unconvincing performance in what play was possible today.Paul Pollard’s run out for six runs at 12 put the host county under pressurefrom the outset, and they dd respond too well. Vikram Solanki (caught-behind, top-edge), David Leatherdale and Elliott Wilson, taken at point and square-leg respectively, followed quickly by 27-4. The manner of dismissal of Ryan Driver and Rhodes as the score edged up to 41-6 culd have done little for the confidence of those that followed them in.Yet it was here in the middle-order that Stuart Lampitt (20) and RichardIllingworth (30) halted the decline while adding 48 runs in 19 overs for the seventh-wicket. It needed Stuart Lampitt (20) and Richard Illingworth (30) to bring a semblance of respectability to proceedings during a seventh-wicket stand of 48 runs in 19 overs. The latter’s place in Tuesday’s match must be uncertain after he damaged a thigh which called for him to finish his knock with a runner.

Thanks to some rather disappointing Matabele batting, the CFX Academy could claimto have had rather the better of the first day’s play between the two teams atCountry Club in Harare today. Although Matabeleland fought back well with theball after their dismissal for 176, a promising third-wicket partnership was inprogress when play came to a premature close with the Academy on 62 for two inreply.The match is being played on the new part of the square, and Paul Strang, winningthe toss for the Academy, decided to bat first mainly because he was unsure ofhow it would play. It generally proved trustworthy, although several balls fromone end did keep low. Matabeleland were missing captain Mark Abrams, forpersonal reasons, so Mark Vermeulen again took over the leadership. John Renniehad still not recovered from his injury and Paul Brown was omitted; MatthewTownshend and Shaun Commerford returned, while left-arm spinner Keith Dabengwamade his first-class debut.Charles Coventry and Wisdom Siziba opened in their usual way for Matabeleland,the former going for his strokes while the latter held his end up. Siziba fellin the fourth over without scoring, however, adjudged lbw to a good ball fromGregg Haakonsen. For a while Coventry and Vermeulen kept the runs flowing, butwhen the Academy tightened up their bowling and put back their fielders runs wereharder to come by. The Academy attack soon lost Jason Young, who strained hisfoot while bowling his fifth over and was forced to leave the field. Vermeulenit seems has a habit of losing patience when tied down, and he duly cut a ballfrom Haakonsen straight to Vaughan-Davies at backward point to be caught for 19.Coventry appeared to be heading for a maiden first-class fifty, playing somelovely drives, but he too seemed to become impatient when the runs did not flow,and on 42 he drove a low return catch that was smartly held by Douglas Hondo.Two batsmen had settled in but given their wickets away without going on to amajor score. Dion Ebrahim and Senyo Nyakutse settled in until lunch, when thescore was 84 for three (Ebrahim 9, Nyakutse 5).Soon after the break Strang, flighting the ball, tempted Nyakutse (6), who drovepowerfully and was caught overhead at mid-on by Travis Friend. Ebrahim (26) wasadjudged lbw to a faster ball from Greg Lamb, and Matabeleland were struggling at114 for five. Then came a useful partnership between Warren Gilmour (31) and IanEngelbrecht (19), who settled in well and played the bowling on its merits for awhile. Gilmour looked particularly impressive square of the wicket, pulling andcutting with excellent timing. But, like his predecessors, he failed tocapitalise on a good start, flicking Mahachi uppishly off his toes to hit a catchstraight at Alester Maregwede at midwicket, after a partnership of 46.This was the beginning of the end for Matabeleland, as wickets tumbled in quicksuccession. Engelbrecht, who had batted so well, swung at a yorker from Friendand chopped it on to his stumps, while Commerford fell lbw to the same bowlerwithout scoring. Townshend again appeared ready to rescue a Matabelelandinnings, but his tail-end partners were not. Jason Hitz (4) skyed a catch tolong-off where Vaughan-Davies took the catch, while Dabengwa (1), who appearedbamboozled by Strang, played across the line to get a leading edge and giveStrang a simple return catch, leaving Townshend unbeaten on 11.Matabeleland were all out a few minutes before team, and manager DerrickTownshend was scathing of his team’s ‘irresponsible batting’, which he felt wasindicative of a one-day mentality still.However, when the Academy went in to bat the Matabeleland opening bowlersTownshend and Commerford looked determined to atone for their team’s sins at thecrease. They bowled with fire and determination, making the ball lift at timesand making life most uncomfortable for openers Maregwede and Vaughan-Davies. Thelatter scored three before being caught by Ebrahim at first slip off Commerford,and new batsman Richard Sims failed to score before being caught at the wicketoff Townshend, which reduced the Academy to 10 for two.Maregwede and Lamb weathered the storm with fine determination and some goodpositive play, keeping the score moving and driving anything overpitched well.They were helped when Townshend suffered a recurrence of his leg injury and hadto leave the field. They had just brought up the fifty partnership with the mostconvincing batting of the day when a light rain began to fall and the lightdeteriorated significantly. With thunder and lightning not far away, the playersleft the field at about 4.45pm with the score on 62 for two (Maregwede 22, Lamb31).

If New Zealand’s tedious draw with Boland in Paarl was a midweek trudge, then the tourists’ three-day match against North West in Potchefstroom has been, by contrast, a weekend romp.By the end of the second day on Sunday, New Zealand needed to take another eight wickets to give themselves an important boost ahead of the next Friday’s first Test match. North West, on the other hand, have to score another 386 to win. If New Zealand don’t win this one, the ICC anti-corruption squad might want to know why.The difference in the New Zealand teams that played last week and over this weekend has been remarkable. It is as if the touring management suddenly realised the importance of winning something after a five-match losing streak against South Africa in the one-day internationals.From the word go New Zealand have been more purposeful, more aggressive and played better cricket. North West were none for two overnight and bowled out for 100 just after lunch to give the Black Caps a 180-run first innings lead.Then Craig Spearman scored his second century of the game – 115 – before retiring to give someone else a chance. Mark Richardson had made 39, Stephen Fleming scored 52 before declaring at 242 for two and then New Zealand grabbed two wickets before the close to have North West 37 for two.The significance in all this is that all of New Zealand’s probable Test top six have made at least a half-century in one of the two warm-up matches and their bowlers might be starting to find the right length on South African pitches.Daryl Tuffey, for instance, looked very ordinary in Paarl, but started to lift perceptibly after taking his first wicket on Sunday morning. He started to run in and bend his back to finish with three for 23. He has taken another wicket in the Boland second innings, as has Shayne O’Connor who claimed three for 14 in the first innings.The third New Zealand seamer, Chris Martin, also took three wickets in the first innings without looking as sharp as either Tuffey or O’Connor. He may be the one to sit out the Test match.North West, admittedly, have been weak opposition and their cause was not helped when they had to make do without two of their frontline bowlers in the New Zealand second innings. Francois van der Merwe went down with diarrhoea while Alfonso Thomas, who made 16 as nightwatchman on Sunday morning, was hit three times on the hand while batting and after two overs found he couldn’t grip the ball properly.For all that, New Zealand have lifted their game for this match. If nothing else, they seem to have got their timing right.

Murray Goodwin batted all day as Sussex built a commanding position against second division leaders Hampshire at the Rosebowl.The Zimbabwean finished undefeated on 131, his first Championship century for the county, as Sussex closed on 290-4.Goodwin and Richard Montgomerie posted Sussex’s first hundred stand for the first wicket for exactly a year, putting on 106 before Montgomerie was bowled by off-spinner Shaun Udal for 56.Left-hander Mike Yardy soon edged Alan Mullally to second slip, but Goodwin and Bas Zuiderent put on 92 in 37 for the third wicket, Goodwin reaching his century after five and a half hours at the crease when he pulled Mullally for his 12th boundary.Zuiderent was needlessly run out in the next over for 45, but Goodwin and skipper Chris Adams added 52 in 14 overs for the fourth wicket and looked like being there again in the morning when Adams was lbw to Alec Morris for 25 two overs before the close.Goodwin had hit 15 boundaries and faced 322 balls by the close, but afterwards he admitted it wasn’t one of his better innings.He said: “It was a difficult wicket to time your shots on, so to bat all day was great because it wasn’t one of my most fluent innnings.”They bowled quite well and there is something in the wicket for the bowlers which hopefully our guys can exploit as the match continues.”

Old Northamptonians:
Bedfordshire 230.
Northamptonshire Cricket Board 158
Bedfordshire win by 72 runsHarpenden:
Hertfordshire 208/9 (D Ward 94).
Middlesex Cricket Board 209/6 (N Armstrong 70*)
Middlesex Cricket Board won by 4 wicketsStratford-upon-Avon:
Warwickshire Cricket Board 273/2
Worcestershire Cricket Board 176
Warwickshire Cricket Board won by 97 runs

Somerset Sabres took 14 runs off Matthew Fleming’s final over of the day to snatch a tie in a low-scoring game with Kent Spitfires played out on a difficult Tunbridge Wells pitch.Batsmen from both sides struggled to score freely on a dry, two-paced pitch that helped seam and spin bowlers alike and helped limit both sides to near identical scores as Sabres posted 181 for eight in reply to Kent’s 181 for nine.The hosts were given a flying start to their innings by James Hockley’s 41 from 31 balls that included eight well-struck boundaries, but wickets fell steadily once he played on to make it 49 for one after just seven overs.Daryll Cullinan (30), Matthew Walker (23), Mark Ealham (19) and Matthew Fleming (23) all looked well set, but went for cameos rather than substantial, match-winning knocks.Sabres too struggled for fluency as the occasional ball reared, while others kept low, and only a highly intelligent and unbeaten 56 from Rob Turner saw them through to level the scores and to a share of the points.With 15 required from Fleming’s final over, Turner swept one four to go to a 66-ball half-century and, with five needed for victory off the last ball, uppercut another Fleming slower-ball over the head of wicket-keeper Paul Nixon for four.It was one-day improvisation at its best and completed a thrilling finish but a result that a near 4,000 Kentish crowd hardly wanted to see as it prevented the hosts from moving into second spot and from completing a one-day double over the Sabres.

Back at his desk in Taunton on Tuesday the Somerset Chief Executive Peter Anderson described the Bath Festival as a “great success, both cricketing wise and off the pitch.”He went on: “at least it gave our batsmen a chance to score runs and we had a magnificent Sunday game.”The cost of staging the festival this year was somewhere in the region of £50,000, which in past years has rarely been covered. This year however it seems likely that the profits from the festival could be in excess of £25,000, which could well mean that Somerset’s trip to the north east of the county will be assured for the foreseeable future.The Chief concluded, “this year there have been positive changes and all credit must go to Bob Appleyard and the Bath Festival Committee. They have the organisation of festival cricket under control and are starting to maximise income opportunities. If that sort of effort continues I can’t see any financial arguments against staging the Bath Festival.”

In my opinion, it was the right decision to appoint Michael Atherton as England captain for the Second Test against Australia at Lord’s. It’s a one-off game in a hard series playing against a fantastic side, and he’s got all the experience to cope with any and every situation that may arise. That’s taking nothing away from anyone else who may have been in the frame. Athers has been there and experienced everything in Test cricket, and will be able to cope easily with the situation, and anything that goes with it. He’s an excellent captain and has led England a record number of times. I’ve played a lot of cricket with him and he’s a good friend. He said yes because he’s prepared to do it and knows he can handle the situation well.In the meantime, we at Surrey have got a big game coming up on Saturday – the Benson and Hedges Cup Final at Lord’s against Gloucestershire. Both teams have just been knocked out of the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy, and we played very poorly in our game against Yorkshire at Headingley. If we play like that on Saturday we’ll struggle. Gloucestershire are a very fine one-day side. They’ve had the experience of playing in the last four finals, winning them all, and they’ve set the benchmark in English domestic one-day cricket. We played badly at Headingley – we know we can play better, and we’re looking to play better on Saturday because once you get to the Final the important thing is to win it. We’ve got a good chance – they’re obviously favourites with their previous success, but we’ve got a lot of very talented individuals and we’ve got to make sure we do the basic things right.It doesn’t count for much that Gloucestershire have finally lost a one-day knock-out match. What matters is how we play. We’ve done very well to get to the Final, and the only thing that matters on Saturday is that we play well and to our full potential.In the meantime I am obviously pleased to have been cleared of the allegations that I provided information to a bookmaker in return for money. The whole affair has gone on for eight months, and there has been a lot of publicity on front and back pages. Now I would like to think there will be the same publicity after Sir Paul Condon has made his comments which have cleared this matter up.The things that have been said have not been nice, but I am a pretty strong person. In English law you cannot make those allegations public. But they were, so I had to live with that. Now Sir Paul has made his comments and cleared me I can get on with my cricket. Thankfully it has been a very thorough job.The ECB have been very supportive, and so have the public. I’ve had a lot of positive letters and just two indifferent ones. As always with those, no one signed them or put an address on them. I would like to thank everyone who has written and said supportive things.I’m now planning to enjoy my cricket for the rest of the summer. I’m looking forward to the B & H Final, and to the Test Match at Lord’s next week. It’ll be good to play under Athers again after three or four years. Hopefully it’ll be a one-off, with Nasser recovered and back in charge for the Third Test. As I write, Graham Thorpe is having treatment from the physio in the Surrey dressing room. I don’t expect him to play on Saturday, but wouldn’t discount him for the Test.

The 2nd Zimbabwe Sun Test between Zimbabwe and West Indies willbe played at Harare Sports Club from 27 to 31 July 2001. Thefollowing team will represent Zimbabwe:HEATH STREAK (CAPTAIN),GUY WHITTALL (VICE-CAPTAIN),ANDY BLIGNAUT,ALISTAIR CAMPBELL,DION EBRAHIM,GRANT FLOWER,HAMILTON MASAKADZA,RAYMOND PRICE,BRYAN STRANG,TATENDA TAIBU,CRAIG WISHART,The following trio will be the 12th men:TRAVIS FRIEND,DAVID MUTENDERA,PAUL STRANG