Cricket: England select Titmus and Bolus: Waterlogged Fenner's falls foul of weather's vagaries

FRED TITMUS, the former Middlesex and England off-spinner, and Brian Bolus, the former Yorkshire and England opening batsman, will join the England selection committee this season.

The two were picked from five names put forward by the Test and County Cricket Board in a postal ballot of the 18 first-class counties, the MCC and the Minor Counties. They will serve for an initial 12 months under the new chairman, Ray Illingworth, whose committee also includes the manager, Keith Fletcher, and the captain, certain to be Mike Atherton.

It will be a second selectorial stint for Titmus, 61, who served under Peter May until 1989 and who was also a county observer for Ted Dexter's England committee. But for Bolus, 60, who also played for Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, it will be a first tour of duty. The others put forward were David Graveney, Bob Cottam and Phil Sharpe.

Surrey, meanwhile, are expected to sign the promising West Indian pace bowler Cameron Cuffy, who measures 6ft 7in, as cover for Waqar Younis, who is out for eight weeks following an emergency appendix operation and will not be available after the second week in July, when Pakistan are touring Sri Lanka. Cuffy, who plays for the Windward Islands, impressed Surrey's captain, Alec Stewart when bowling for the West Indian Board XI against England recently.

The weather wiped out Cambridge University's match with Nottinghamshire yesterday, but relented just enough at the Parks to allow Oxford University to be beaten by 177 runs by Durham in a game of contrived declarations, which left the students chasing 251 in 220 minutes. They were all out for 73, having been 25 for 5 at one point. The only real resistance came from Hasnain Malik, who made 27.

England's next two winter tours, to Australia this year and South Africa in 1995, will both be televised - like the present one to the West Indies - on Sky Sports.

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