Cricket: Hemp helps Warwickshire to take command

Warwickshire 342-3 v Sussex 23-2 (after 8 overs)

The second NatWest Trophy final followed the first in becoming a two- day affair after rain hampered progress here yesterday. It will need rather more than the 11 balls bowled at Chelmsford yesterday to obtain a result when the contest resumes this morning.

It will also need a record-breaking performance if Sussex, who began the season in turmoil after losing half a team and a whole committee, are to become the most unlikely of finalists after an unbeaten century by the former Glamorgan left-hander David Hemp helped Warwickshire to a formidable total of 342 for 3 in 60 overs.

Sussex have chased runs with notable success in reaching the last four but will surely find the task they face here too much, needing to eclipse even the 329 they managed to beat Derbyshire at Derby in the quarter-final, a higher winning total than any side batting second has achieved in the competition's 34-year history.

Warwickshire will not be easily deprived of a fourth trip to Lord's in five years. They demonstrated as much yesterday after their opponents won the toss and chose to bowl but had to wait 29 overs to make a breakthrough after Neil Smith and Andy Moles put on 130 for the first wicket.

It was a brave effort by Moles, who batted with the aid of painkillers and a reinforced glove because of damage to a finger, and it was hardly surprising that his 30-year-old partner should take the initiative with an exhibition of fine, aggressive strokeplay.

The all-rounder, acting captain in the absence of the injured Tim Munton and Nick Knight, struck a career-best 72 off 73 balls, hitting 10 fours and taking a particularly heavy toll of the former England fast bowler, Paul Jarvis, whom Sussex had rather hoped would be a trump card on a muggy morning.

Jarvis was completely out of sorts, his first three deliveries flashing to the boundary off Smith's bat as he conceded 24 runs from his opening two overs. Indeed, the first ball in each of three spells contributing to 10-over figures of 0-76 went for four.

Smith fell to Rajesh Rao's catch on the cover boundary,| after which Moles reached 56 off 109 balls before he was leg before to Vasbert Drakes. For the most part Sussex bowled respectably well, especially Mark Robinson, who deserved a wicket or two to enhance his economy.

But Warwickshire were full of runs, inconvenienced neither by two long stoppages - of three hours and one hour after a delayed start - nor by anything in the conditions.

Hemp combined with Dominic Ostler (58) in an marvellous partnership of 142 in 22 over for the third wicket, joining the assault on Jarvis in reaching a half-century in 54 balls, then surviving an amazing sequence in which he was dropped twice on 54 and again on 60 before accelerating to 111 off 93 balls, with sixes off Jarvis, Keith Greenfield and three in one over off Amer Ali Khan.

Allan Donald will receive South Africa's highest sporting honour, the gold medal, from Nelson Mandela in the Presidential awards in Pretoria tomorrow.