Gloucestershire through to another final

Gloucestershire continued their dominance over Yorkshire by thrashing them by 97 runs with 12.1 overs to spare in the semi-final of the Benson and Hedges Cup at Headingley yesterday.

Yorkshire still have sore memories of their Benson and Hedges Super Cup final flogging by Mark Alleyne's team at Lord's two years ago when they lost by124 runs.

After winning the toss, Gloucestershire did well to reach 239 for seven off Yorkshire's strong attack but the turning point came with the freak dismissal of Darren Lehmann which plunged Yorkshire to 24 for three and wrecked their hopes of a revival.

The Australian drove fellow countryman Ian Harvey gently to Chris Taylor at mid-off and he returned the ball to wicketkeeper Jack Russell who whipped off the bails with Lehmann stood out of his ground unaware of any danger.

Lehmann obviously thought he was stood well inside his crease but television replays showed the third umpire that he was at least a couple of inches short of the line.

Yorkshire never recovered from this disaster and at one stage they were tottering on 25 for five and it was mainly through a 59 run stand - the highest of the match - for the sixth wicket between Craig White and Gavin Hamilton that they were able to make142.

There was a surprise even before the game began when Yorkshire left out England bowler Matthew Hoggard because of poor one-day form, preferring instead Chris Silverwood who has recently recovered from a groin strain.

Neither Darren Gough nor Silverwood experienced any luck with the new ball as Tim Hancock and Kim Barnett got Gloucestershire off to a spirited start with an opening stand of 48 which turned out to be the highest of the innings.

Barnett was then caught behind off Gavin Hamilton to bring in Matthew Windows who top scored with 54 from 93 balls (2x4, 1x6) to win the man-of-the-match gold award.

Hancock, dropped by David Byas at slip on 17, also made an important contribution with 42 and Jeremy Snape kept the momentum going with an unbeaten 25.

Alleyne commented: "I never expected us to win by almost 100 runs against a quality side like Yorkshire but we took our chances well. I was very happy with our 239 total and it was a hell of a bonus wicket when we got rid of Darren Lehmann like that.

"We now meet Surrey at Lord's and that is the final we wanted. We look forward to playing half the England side - we met the other half today!"