THERE are some sporting occasions which transcend barriers and grab attention across a wide, wide landscape.

They're the confrontations where you abandon tribal club loyalties and simply become drunk on what you're watching and what you're seeing.

They're the battles where the vast majority doesn't really care who wins - you're simply pleased to be able to say you've seen it, because you know that reminiscences in the years to come will set the heart beating that little bit faster.

Saturday's C&G Trophy semi-final at New Road was that occasion.

Every red-blooded cricket fan in Worcestershire, we trust, will have been driven to the edge of despair at the thought of defeat dragged from the jaws of victory.

And every one of them will have smiled a smile as wide as the Severn when Andrew Hall turned the course of history with a double-wicket maiden in the game's final over.

Lancashire needed seven to win. It started well and the thrills kept coming, culminating with a fifth-ball run-out which left the Lancashire batsmen so demoralised that they didn't even bother to take the last run on offer.

The fact that it could have gone the other way, with a six off the last ball clinching a one-run victory, made the feeling all the better.

We have three weeks, now, to settle the nerves and let our blood pressure return to normal before the Lord's final.

Dare we hope for a repeat? Gloucestershire are the opponents. So don't rule it out.