Cricket very close

Press, 18 August 1978, Page 4

Cricket very close

NZPA-Reuter London. A run-out off the last ball of ♦he match took Somerset Into the final of the Gillette Cup cricket competition at the expense of Essex at Taunton. Although the two sides scores were level on 287. Somerset won because it lost only six wickets while Essex was all out. Somerset’s innings w'as built around a superb 116 by the West Indian. Viv Richards who was dropped by Ken McEwan when 22. His innings contained 14 fours, a five and a six and earned him the “man of the match” award. Essex began well and eventually needed 40 from four overs. After some hectic cricket the last pair. Nigel Smith and John Lever, wanted seven from the last three balls; trving for a decisive three off the last ball Smith was run out. In the other semi-final Sussex beat Lancashire by 136 runs at Hove to reach Its first final for five years. Sussex’s total of 277 always looked beyond Lancashire after it lost the key wicket of Clive Lloyd in the twenty-eighth over. The former West Indies test captain made 40 Sussex owed its success to its

third wicket pair. Paul Partee and the Pakistani Javed Mlandad, who shared a partnership of 123 in 29 overs. Miandad’s innings of 75. made in only 88mln. contained two sixes and seven boundaries and earned him the “man of the mateh” award. The final, between Somerset and Sussex, will be played at Lords on September 3.