YOU won't be able to find a seat at Lord's for the first four days of the second Ashes Test -- provided it lasts that long.

Test cricket is enjoying a boom in status and popularity and, with the Aussies always the biggest draw, all five Ashes games this summer will be sell-outs.

Contrast that with the 'crowd' which watched Saturday's Benson and Hedges Cup final.

Around 17,500 supporters left Lord's half empty as Surrey beat Gloucestershire to end Gloucester's reign as the one-day cup kings.

Some observers have subsequently claimed that the B and H, which has attracted dwindling numbers to each of its finals since the mid-1990s, has had its day and that English cricket should lose it's second cup competition.

Such claims are on a par with the critics of the Worthington Cup, who regard it as one competition too many in the football calendar.

I beg to differ. England's Test players naturally need to guard against over-playing, although the pendulum seems to have swung too far the other way in recent times.

But Lancashire's staff can hardly feel they're overworked at the moment.

They can't help the rain, of course, but the current lull in the County Championship has left a few holes in the fixture list.

The B and H hasn't been helped by chopping and changing the format and, in my opinion, being screened on Sky Television.

The broadcasters give valuable air-time and hard cash to the sport and in the early rounds their coverage must be a boon to the armchair fans.

However, showing the final exclusively to a restricted audience takes the climax of the competition away from much of the public consciousness.

That state of affairs is likely to continue but at risk of making one more change to the early stages of the competition, why not ditch the zonal round again and make it a straight knock-out ?

Two preliminary round winners plus the other 14 counties would make up the first-round draw. Three wins and a final place beckons.

That wouldn't exactly create fixture congestion and while the cry goes out for England to play one more-day games, what's wrong with keeping the intensity up at county level by doing a Gloucestershire and raising the standard ?

And you can bet your bottom dollar that if Yorkshire could actually get through a semi-final and meet Lancashire in the final, Lord's would be bursting at the seams.

NO wonder Murray Walker figured so prominently in the coverage of Sunday's British Grand Prix.

The legendary commentator deserves all the plaudits going. But let's face it, was there anything else to talk about ?

As sporting spectacles go, the Silverstone 'showpiece' was right up there with rythmic gymnastics.

If sponsors are prepared to pump millions into a glorified motor show that's their business.

But placing yesterday's race alongside the likes of Wimbledon and the Ashes series in our 'glorious summer of sport' is about justifiable as David Coulthard's claim to still be in the World Championship race.

JULY 14, it must be the start of the football season.

Newcastle United and Aston Villa marked Saturday's date by launching their campaigns in the Inter Two-Bob Cup, as it was once famously dubbed in one national newspaper.

Even Sven Goran Erikkson turned up in Belgium to watch Newcastle's win over Lokeren.

And in the absence of an assistant manager, Toon Army boss Bobby Robson wasted no time in grooming Erikkson as his successor by giving him a seat on the bench.

Remember where you heard it first.