CRICKET: Titchard shares the honour

Essex 509

Lancashire 618-9

It is proving to be a rather satisfying weekend for the Lloyd family. While father David wears a contented smile on the England balcony at Edgbaston, son Graham has surely resurrected his first-class career with an innings that almost doubled his previous best.

And he was not alone in his celebrations last night - Stephen Titchard took full opportunity of his first Championship game of the season with an assured 163.

Unlike Lloyd, he sometimes slowed to a crawl, but this was a vital innings for him. Places are hard to secure at Lancashire - this effort will not get Titchard to the Benson and Hedges semi-final on Tuesday, for instance.

Lloyd, in his ninth year at Old Trafford, has not been an automatic four- day choice of late, and his sprightly approach to batsmanship is sometimes deemed more appropriate to sprint cricket. And yet, coming to the crease early on Friday afternoon when Lancashire were stumbling at 55 for three in response to Essex's daunting 509, he reeled off the season's two fastest centuries, in 70 and 71 balls respectively, peppering the stands with a dozen sixes - a county record.

Some sprint, and a faultless one until he perished early yesterday.

Lloyd is a pugnacious, eager batsman and both he and Titchard boomed boundaries from their first and third balls of the day. Lloyd's victim was the tall, young seamer Ashley Cowan, but revenge was swift. This wicket is flat, but generous in lift, and when Cowan dug in a brisk bouncer Lloyd was startled into waggling his bat overhead, touching the ball to keeper Robert Rollins.

The pair had compiled a Lancashire fourth-wicket record of 358, tantalisingly close to the all-wicket best of 371, and from being in real danger of following on when they lost their third wicket, Lancashire had put the Essex score in perspective.

While skipper Mike Watkinson maintained momentum with a cameo 34, including a huge six over the Tom Pearce stand, before being stumped by yards when he took on slow left-armer Adrian Grayson, Titchard pressed steadily onward. But a big-scoring game that needed four sunny days was interrupted before lunch by nagging rain, and it cost the afternoon session and 40 overs.

In early evening, after his marathon, Titchard subsided tamely, fooled by the persevering Peter Such and snapped up by Jon Lewis at silly point. By then, with the weather having played its unwelcome role, Watkinson had little choice but to ask his tail-enders to bat on as briskly as possible, hoping for a Monday miracle.