Cumbes - Cricket has seen the light

Jim Cumbes, Chief Executive of Lancashire, is enthusiastic for the lights and music which day/light play in the NatWest Series has brought to cricket. He told reporter Andy Jalil: " What this sort of thing, with lights and music and so on does is to let the crowd take part in the day. They wave their fours and sixes and clap to the music and chant along as well. It makes them feel that they belong to what's going on out there.

"If we are trying to get a newer and younger audience in then we must have this because this is tthe sort of thing that they are going to go for. We have seen this in ice hockey here in Manchester and we have seen it in basket-ball. To a lesser degree we have seen it at Manchester United as well, so we are following a kind of trend."

He then added: "I'll give you an example from personal experience. At my local pub, there are some people who had never been to cricket before, they came to a floodlit game last year, and when I spoke to them they said, ' we don't know much about cricket, but we really had a great night and we will certainly be back.' Now that is the kind of thing we want to hear."

Grey day - great atmosphere

Cumbes, who played first-class cricket for Worcestershire and kept goal for West Bromwich Albion and knows all about playing in the presence of a large crowd said: "Considering it wasn't a nice day, it was grey and cold, we got about eleven thousand people and that is not bad. It helped to create a great atmosphere."