Cricket: Surrey hope Cuffy can shackle Lara

THE records on offer at The Oval today for Brian Lara are the highest Benson and Hedges Cup score (198 not out by Graham Gooch) and the fastest hundred (62 minutes by Malcolm Nash), writes Glenn Moore.

Whether he will have the energy to chase them in the semi-final against Surrey is another matter, but Warwickshire are not as reliant on him as might be thought. In five one-day innings this year Lara has made just 90 runs and Warwickshire have won all of the matches.

'We have other good players in the side. We made more than 320 to win the NatWest final last year without Lara or any other overseas player,' Dermot Reeve said.

Alec Stewart, Surrey's captain, does have one bowler who might not be full of trepidation at facing Lara. Cameron Cuffy dismissed Lara for his two lowest scores of the domestic West Indian season earlier this year - five and 28 - and Lara said: 'He must think he has got my number.'

Reeve is struggling with a groin injury that has seriously hampered his bowling. If the captain fails to pass a fitness test then the left-arm spinner Richard Davis will play.

Martin Bicknell has a foot injury, and Surrey include both their spinners, James Boiling and Neil Kendrick, in a 13-man squad. In the other semi-final Worcestershire, the winners in 1991, play the 1992 winners, Hampshire.