Biff-bam-bosh

For the first time in its 74-year history, the Walter Lawrence Trophy, traditionally awarded for the fastest first-class hundred of the English season (you get a £5,000 cheque this year too), will be open to all domestic county competitions, including Twenty20 matches. The leader so far is Martin van Jaarsveld, of Kent, who got to 100 in 78 balls against Essex in the Friends Provident Trophy on Sunday. Last year's winner, for first-class games only, was Marcus North of Gloucestershire, who got to his hundred in 73 balls.

Given the escalation in big-hitting these days, I suspect the winning score will be quite low this year although Mark Ealham's 100 off 45 balls in 2006 may be hard to beat even in a Twenty20 game. Astoundingly, Geoffrey Boycott once won the trophy, in 1970, but the notorious grinder benefited from a change in the rules that season when it was given to the "most meritorious" hundred, rather than the fastest. He took 222 balls over getting there.