Minor Counties Final: Cheshire v Suffolk

Date released: 27 August 2007

Suffolk are this year's Minor Counties Cricket Association (MCCA) Trophy winners, beating Cheshire by 35 runs on Monday 27th August at Lord's.

Both sides won through in thrilling semi-finals. Suffolk shaded Oxfordshire by three wickets, despite skittling their opponents for just 65. Cheshire edged past Devon by 12 runs after a nerve-jangling final over in their replayed fixture.

With a host of young talent on display, hoping to catch the eye of the county teams, where better to excel than at 'The Home of Cricket'?

Cheshire

Skipper Andrew Hall missed the semi-final victory, though stand-in Nathan Dumelow will have half an eye on the captaincy after masterminding that win.

Right-arm spinner Dumelow does most of his talking with the ball, capturing ten wickets in this season's MCCA Trophy at an average of 15

However, with a high-score of 119 in the tournament so far the former Derbyshire player is no slouch with bat in hand. His 264 runs make him the second highest run-scorer in the competition.

Left-arm fast-medium bowler Adam Syddall is likely to lead the Chesire attack. His 12 wickets this season make him one of the most prolific MCCA Trophy bowlers this season. With two four-wicket hauls and best figures of 4/21 he will be one for the Suffolk batsmen to be wary of.

Cheshire squad: Andy Hall (captain), Danny Leech, Chris Bassano, Ismail Dawood, Matthew Dawson (wicketkeeper), James Duffy, Guy Emmett, Nathan Dumelow, Chris Finegan, Ben Spendlove, Adam Syddall, Jason Whittaker, Danny Woods. 12th man: Chris Davis.

Suffolk

The East Anglian side will be led by Philip Caley and he is likely to rely heavily on his side's leading lights.

South Africa born seamer Martin Smith is the MCCA Trophy's leading wicket-taker with 13 victims this season. His return of 6/25 played a key role in their semi-final win and he'll surely be relishing the chance to bowl with the famous Lord's slope.

He'll be hoping left-handed opener Ben France has hands like buckets on match-day. Another former Derbyshire pro, France is the MCCA Trophy's leading catch taker with six to his name so far.

His fellow opener Tom Huggins holds the record for breaking 50 most often in this year's Trophy. With an average of 68.33 he's reached his half-century three times in the tournament and will be hoping to finally make three figures in the showpiece final.

Also in the Suffolk squad is Essex coach and former England one-day player, Paul Grayson. Grayson has two England one-day caps to his name, including an impressive 3-40 against Zimbabwe in 2001 - a decent Zimbabwe side too, featuring Henry Olonga, Sean Ervine and both Flower brothers.

Suffolk squad: Phil Caley (captain), Justin Bishop, Phil Edwards, Ben France, Paul Grayson, Tobias Henbry, Tom Huggins, Paul King, Nick Lee, Andrew Mawson, Martin Smith, Chris Swallow, Chris Warn (wicketkeeper).

Match information

This 50 over match starts at 11am. Gates at Lord's open at 10am. Tickets are £10 for adults and £5 for over 65s and under 16s. Tickets can be bought on the gate on a strictly cash only basis.

MCC will be offering live, ball-by-ball commentary for this match. Blind or partially sighted visitors can borrow a headset for the day from the Head Steward's Office to listen in to our commentary service.

Alternatively, if you're unable to attend the match you can listen to the commentary online via lords.org.

Watch the toss carefully for this one. In each of the last four MCCA Finals at Lord's the captain who won the toss, went on to lift the trophy.