IT'S bye-bye forever to Benson and Hedges cricket for Yorkshire after the embarrassing seven-wicket caning which Essex handed out in Wednesday's quarter-final match at Chelmsford.

The 30-year-old competition draws to a close this season and it would have been fitting if Yorkshire could have made it into the last final after contesting the first one with Leicestershire in 1972.

Leicestershire, under the shrewd captaincy of the then exiled Yorkshireman, Ray Illingworth, won that game by five wickets, and Yorkshire's chance of making amends by being the last name to be inscribed on the cup has now gone.

It's been quite the fashion in recent years to knock the B&H competition but I for one will mourn its passing and I am convinced county cricket will be all the poorer without it.

In its place comes the 20-overs farce, crammed into a fortnight in June and confidently expected by the ECB to have hoards of youngsters queuing up to watch it.

The B&H down the years has been an excellent start of season contest with a highly competitive format and it has been a useful vehicle for players searching for early one-day form.

Even if tobacco sponsorship is no longer acceptable - and B&H have been county cricket's most loyal backers - it is regrettable that the ECB considered it in the game's best interests to dump the competition altogether and consign it to history.

That Yorkshire should win the B&H Cup only once in 31 seasons is an indication of the club's general weakness over that period of time but their great triumph against Northamptonshire in the 1987 final will never be forgotten.

Many fans still have a vivid picture in their memory bank of skipper Phil Carrick holding up the Cup on the Lord's balcony with gold award winner Jim Love who made a match-winning 75 not out in the greatest innings of his career.

The thriller finished with Yorkshire matching Northamptonshire's score of 244 and lifting the Cup by virtue of losing fewer wickets - six to their opponents seven.

Unless something quite out of the ordinary happens in the semi-finals and final, Yorkshire will hold on to several of the competition's outstanding records.

No-one has yet bettered Australian Michael Bevan and Richard Blakey's unbroken stand of 167 for the sixth-wicket which they set up in that nerve-racking Roses semi-final at Old Trafford in 1996 which Yorkshire went and threw away by one wicket off the very last ball when seemingly home and dry.

The seventh-wicket record is held by Love and Chris Old who blasted 149 together without being parted against Scotland at Bradford Park Avenue in 1981 and Yorkshire also hold the tenth-wicket record which was set up in the same year by David Bairstow and Mark Johnson.

The gallant pair slammed 80 together to rush Yorkshire to a sensational one-wicket win over Derbyshire at Derby, Johnson's share of the stand being only four. It was completely dominated by Bairstow who stampeded and bawled his way to an unbeaten 103 with nine sixes and three fours - his second 50 took a mere six overs.

Hampshire were swept away for only 50 by Yorkshire in 1991 to record the lowest score in the competition, Arnie Sidebottom gathering up four of the wickets.

So, farewell the Benson and Hedges Cup, at least for Yorkshire. Their Roses generosity means that Lancashire can still win it - and if they do David Byas will be able to give another wry grin at the way things have changed since he moved across the Pennines after being cast out by his native county.

Updated: 09:29 Saturday, May 25, 2002