A BROMSGROVE man got a slice of the action in bowling over the South African cricket team when his bakery cooked up a birthday feast.

Colin Guntrip is a confectioner at Quality Crust, in Droitwich, which baked cakes for four members of the team, which has been playing England at Edgbaston.

Shaun Pollock, Makhaya Ntini, Boerta Dippenar and Monde Zodeki all celebrated their birthdays on Friday and their coach contacted Quality Crust to ask if staff could whip up some special treats.

The bakery has a catering contract with Edgbaston and general manager Ian Terry said: "We had lengthy talks with the coach to ensure the recipe wouldn't include too many unhealthy ingredients.

"Colin created a banana sponge and we sourced some extremely low fat cream for decoration.

"I've had very positive feedback and, apparently, the players loved our cakes."

Quality Crust, which has another shop in Bromsgrove, also made a farewell cake for England wicket keeper Alec Stewart OBE.

"He plans to retire after this test match so we thought we would take the opportunity to mark his retirement," added Ian.