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Grant Flower, the oldest man on the pitch, transformed a tense final into a comfortable canter for a buoyant Essex team as Kent paid for their careless batting.

Flower was not the obvious match-winner coming into the game but he has played more one-day internationals than anyone on either side and he used that experience to wrestle the match away from Kent.

But from there he reigned himself in, reasoning that if he batted through to the end Essex would win. It was not spectacular but his ruthless professionalism contrasted sharply with Kent's earlier indiscipline.

Justin Kemp and Darren Stevens will not be proud of their dismissals but neither can compete with Azhar Mahmood's preposterous stroke against Danish Kaneria - a tame, lofted drive against the spin straight to Flower at long off when judicious retrenchment was required.

It was the sort of shot that makes a captain scrub your name of the team sheet for the next match. Think Kevin Pietersen at Edgbaston and double it. Azhar though has the all-rounder's luxury of making up for it with the ball and his dismissals of Mark Pettini and Jason Gallian at least gave his team a chance.

It would have been worse for Kent if umpire George Sharp had given out Martin van Jaarsveld leg before to Graham Napier from the first ball he faced. It looked plum. Sharp had an undistinguished day, also giving Ravi Bopara was out lbw to a ball that was going over the top.

Many players have been picked for England on the basis of a good performance in a Lord's final. The selectors try to do it a little more scientifically these days but the big match in front of a large crowd does test a player's temperament.

None of the England qualified players on display significantly improved their international chances although James Foster took a good catch standing up to the new ball and played a sensible supporting role in the vital fifth wicket stand with Flower.

Foster's wicketkeeping is very much his strongest suit. His one blemish was watching Ryan McLaren's edge fly between him and Gallian at slip. It could have been costly with McLaren, who top-scored with 63, on nought at the time.

Another England hopeful, Joe Denly, played two sweet strokes before receiving a decent ball from Napier that defeated his ambitious shot. He was bowled through the gate by one that came back down the slope.

The charm of these occasions lies in the unexpected success of an unsung player. Flower did the job with the bat while seam bowler David Masters bowled a fine spell with the new ball to set Kent back at the start of their innings. A match against a former county - Masters once played for the men from Canterbury - has a habit of inspiring players .

Kent, probably a stronger team on paper, lacked the same edge. They played well in losing the Twenty20 final; here they let themselves down.

It was, possibly, an inevitable moment.

As New Zealand's cricket captain for the start of the England tour sat down to take questions from the media, one veteran sportswriter asked his colleague: "Is that Jamie How?"

That's right folks, the Black Caps have landed in town to begin a 10-week tour of England and Scotland.

However, until 1 May, their five most marketable players are boosting their pension funds by turning out in the Indian Premier League, so a star-studded squad they are not.

But by the time the squad assembles in Chelmsford for their third warm-up match, his duties will pass to Dan Vettori.

It is to be hoped that the regular skipper - plus Brendon McCullum, Ross Taylor, Jacob Oram and Kyle Mills - sleep as well on long-haul flights as the coach, John Bracewell.

"Bracers" arrived at Lord's on Thursday as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as a squirrel about to tuck into a mountain of hazelnuts.

By contrast, How looked like a man in need of a good night's sleep - understandable given that the media session took place just after midnight New Zealand time.

Thus Bracewell fielded most of the questions.

The squad had only been in England for less than 24 hours but he had already called Vettori in India.

"His new best friend is Glenn McGrath, so there you go," he said, giving an insight into the instant camaraderie in the Delhi Daredevils' dressing-room.

Being without Vettori and co for the tour start was "never ideal", Bracewell admitted, but a "reality of the landscape we live in".

IPL, he said, was giving New Zealand's leading players the same annual cash that the nation's top rugby pros would earn.

So in that way it would serve, he hoped, as an incentive for other New Zealanders.

Bracewell admitted he had spent most of his breakfasts in the past week watching "a full diet" of Twenty20 action in India.

But How had been caught out by the 7am starts (New Zealand time) and so had missed much of McCullum's stunning 158 not out in the first IPL match.

"I think everyone wishes they were in India," he added ruefully.

Bracewell coped admirably with a surprise question about his possible return to Gloucestershire, a county without a coach at present but one which won a string of Lord's finals under his stewardship.

"Bristol was very special to me," he said. Describing his time at the club as a "great learning apprenticeship for international cricket" he said a return at some point was "not out of the question".

When the formalities were over, How and Bracewell could have stayed at Lord's to see how the wicket was playing ahead of the first Test on 15 May.

But the rain was lashing down, and instead of watching Glamorgan's Ryan Watkins bowling at Middlesex's Gareth Berg the taxi back to the team hotel in Kensington seemed a better bet.

Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford, involved in marathon talks with the ECB about all things Twenty20, has also been staying in that neck of the woods.

Should his path cross with Jamie How's in the next day or so let's hope he doesn't ask for room service.

TMS analyst Simon Hughes has given his marks out of 10 for the England players. Do you agree with them?

Alastair Cook - 7/10
Continued his batting education and finally managed to convert a good start with a match-saving century at Galle. But he needs to work on his fielding especially close to the wicket.

Ian Bell - 7/10
The stylist of the team looking at ease against all types of bowling. His two innings at Kandy were particularly impressive. However, if I were to be critcal I'd say his main fault is that he continues to give his wicket away when he is well set.

Kevin Pietersen - 4/10
His dismissal in Colombo, flashing at a wide one from Chaminda Vaas, underlines the pressure of expectation he feels to dominate. But he has been unable to do so here as he would have liked. Was out-thought by Murali and Jayawardene in the second innings at Galle to complete his first Test series without scoring a single half-century.

Paul Collingwood - 7/10
Workmanlike as ever and marshalled the lower order very well on a couple of occasions, but nothing spectacular. Bowling was useful at times.

Ravi Bopara - 3/10
Got himself into the side by showing real promise and energy at the start of the tour with batting, bowling and fielding. But unfortunately at the moment he looks well out of his depth at Test level symbolised by his chaotic first-ball dismissal in the second innings at Galle.

Matt Prior - 5/10
Held his own with the bat and kept pretty well in the first two Tests. But he had a shocker with the gloves at Galle and may soon be jettisoned.

Ryan Sidebottom - 6/10
He kept running in willingly in alien conditions and was unlucky with dropped catches off his bowling. But apart from in Colombo he rarely struck gold and looked very tired by the end. On the plus side he batted with guts.

Steve Harmison - 8/10
Shades of his best in his later bowling in Colombo where he dragged life out of a dead pitch and never stinted from effort. Could not have done much more.

Matthew Hoggard - 7/10
Bowled superbly in Kandy to reduce Sri Lanka to 44-5 , but then he suffered a recurrence of his back injury and was not as effective when he returned.

Monty Panesar - 4/10
Found the going hard against expert players of spin and struggled with rhythm and the burden of expectation.

James Anderson - 4/10
Difficult to judge on just one appearance. But he didn't seem to have any weapons that could make an impact and couldn’t contain the Sri Lankan batsman.

Stuart Broad - 4/10
Enthusiastic but needs more strength and penetration to perform at this level.

Below are Bill's responses to some of your questions posed at the end of his last column and if you have a question for Bill, leave it at the end of this blog entry, including your name and nationality, and he might answer it in his next piece.

Bill isn’t able to answer all of your questions, however. BBC Sport staff will choose a selection of them and send them to Bearders for him to answer.

Bearders' Answer: I watched most of that match on television and, although I was born in Surrey and played my early cricket there, I did feel very sad for Lancashire. However, had they won, your county would still have gained fewer wins than either Sussex or Durham. There is a strong case for discarding bonus points and deciding the title on most victories.

Although the title has been decided on the penultimate day of the competition several times in recent years, not since 1985 has it been in the hazard until the final day. Then, on 17 September, Middlesex defeated Warwickshire by an innings and 74 runs at Edgbaston to clinch the title by an 18-point margin. I very much doubt if any title has been decided later than 6.01pm, as was this year’s. The latest date for winning the Championship is 21 September (by Leicestershire in 1996) and the earliest is 12 August (by Kent in 1910).

Q: Is Ottis Gibson the oldest bowler to take all ten wickets in a first-class innings?
Wraye Wenigmann (Bonn, Germany)

Bearders' Answer: No, Wraye. Ottis was 38 years 4 months when he demolished Hampshire’s first innings at Chester-le-Street last July. There have been eight all-ten instances by bowlers aged 40 and over, including three by leg-spinner A.P. (‘Tich’) Freeman. The oldest was ‘Billy’ Bestwick, the heavily-built Derbyshire fast-medium bowler who took 10 for 40 against Glamorgan at Cardiff in 1921 when he was 46.

Gibson is the second-oldest to achieve this feat since the Second World War, Jim Sims, the Middlesex off-spinner being 45 when he did it for East v West in the 1948 Kingston upon Thames Festival.

Q: Are there any total innings scores for a Test team between 100 and 500 that have yet to be scored? Alan Bland

Bearders' Answer: No. The lowest three-digit innings total still to feature in Test cricket is 525.

Q: How high on a list of innings totals not containing a single extra does Somerset's recent 312 v Essex stand? Chris Grant

Bearders' Answer: I haven’t found a list of extra-free innings in all first-class cricket – probably that is not surprising as it would involve searching through nearly 50,000 scores. The highest total without extras in Test matches is 328 by Pakistan v India at the Bagh-i-Jinnah Ground in Lahore on 29-30 January 1955.

Q: I still want to know (especially considering the number of wides now being bowled in Test cricket) if Alec Bedser ever bowled a wide in a Test. And how many wides did he bowl in all first-class cricket? Jim Dale

Bearders' Answer: This is another question that is impossible to answer because such records were never kept during Alec Bedser’s first-class career (1939-1960). As he bowled 106,062 legitimate balls in all first-class matches, including 15,918 for England, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he sent down the very occasional wide.

So well grooved, rhythmical and balanced was his action that he would have bowled very few. If he had ever scored a direct hit on second slip, similar to that aberration at the start of the last Ashes rubber, he would have either reported sick or retired immediately.

Sir Alec phoned me shortly after I had submitted the above answer and was fairly certain that he never bowled a wide in a Test match. "I might have bowled one or two in first-class cricket because we often had to bowl with a wet ball, but I never hit second slip!"

Q: A bowler is brought on to bowl his first over with the scores tied and the batting side needing a single for victory. His first delivery is called a wide and the match is over. Is his final bowling analysis 0-0-1-0 or 0.1-0-1-0? Paul

Bearders' Answer: It certainly cannot be 0.1 overs because neither wides nor no balls count as a ball bowled in recording an over in analysis form. It is either 0-0-1-0 or, more correctly, 0.0-0-1-0.

Q: I was just interested to know who holds the record for the most wicket maidens in Test cricket. Also, who has bowled the most maidens in Tests? Daniel Grey

Bearders' Answer: Sorry, Daniel. Records detailing individual totals of wicket maidens do not exist. Any attempt to compare cumulative totals of maidens hits a major snag because the number of balls in an over in Test cricket has varied between 4, 5, 6 and 8. Only since 1979 has the six-ball over been universally used. For this reason I do not include maidens in my career figures in either The Wisden Book of Test Cricket or The Playfair Cricket Annual.

However, given the recent proliferation of Test cricket, it is fair to assume that a modern day bowler has bowled the most maidens. As Shane Warne (40,518) and Muthiah Muralitharan (37,058) have bowled the most balls (excluding no-balls and wides), it is not surprising that they register the two highest tallies of maidens (1,754 and 1,611 respectively).

My question is regarding Yuvraj Singh's amazing knock against England; I believe his 50 came up off just 12 balls. I'm fairly sure this is the fastest in international cricket, but is it the fastest in all first-class cricket? If not, what is the record? Andrew Parker

Bearders' Answer: With the advent of the 20-over format, there are now four categories of records: Test matches, first-class matches (which include Tests), limited-overs internationals (50-overs), and Twenty20 games.

Yuvraj’s 12-ball epic is the Twenty20 record. The 50-over international record is 17 balls by Sanath Jayasuriya for Sri Lanka v Pakistan at Singapore in April 1996. Jacques Kallis holds the Test record with his 24-ball fifty for South Africa v Zimbabwe at Cape Town in March 2005.

The fastest fifty in all first-class cricket, excluding any donated by rubbish bowling to speed a declaration, took C.I.J (‘Big Jim’) Smith 11 minutes for Middlesex v Gloucestershire at Bristol in 1938. The fastest in terms of fewest balls is not known.

Q: What is the highest score off the last over of a limited-overs international game? What is the highest score off the last over to win an international one day game? Ed B

Bearders' Answer: Stats relating to most runs off an over do not include the over in question. Only by checking through detailed scoresheets of more than 2,600 internationals (excluding the 20-over version) could the answer to your second question be found.

The answer to your first question would have to be 30 by Dimitri Mascarenhas (five sixes) v India at The Oval on 5th September. There have been only two higher aggregates from a single over (36 by Herschelle Gibbs and 32 by Shahid Afridi) and neither was off the final over of an innings.

Q: In 50-over internationals, what proportion of matches have been won by the teams batting first/second, and how important is winning the toss in determining the winner of a match? Ian W

Bearders' Answer: Surprisingly, neither the toss nor the order of innings has made much difference to the overall results. Sides batting first have won 1,222 games and lost 1,283. Winners of the toss have won 1,276 matches, lost 1,229. A further 22 games have been tied, with another 83 ending in a ‘no result’ draw. As with all my international records, matches involving multinational teams are excluded.

Q: What is the greatest differential between a Test team's first innings score and its second? Pricey

Bearders' Answer: The widest margin is 551 runs achieved by Pakistan (106 and 657-8 dec) in their inaugural Test v West Indies, at Bridgetown, Barbados, in January 1958. Following on 473 behind, they salvaged a draw thanks to Hanif Mohammed’s marathon 337 in 16 hours 10 minutes.

Q: Has any player of Asian origin played for the Australian national team? If so, how well did he fare? Asif

Bearders' Answer: If by ‘origin’ you mean born in Asia (as opposed to being born in Australia of Asian parents), there have been three. Although B.B. (Bransby) Cooper was born at Dacca, India (now in Bangladesh) in 1844, he was educated at Rugby. A right-handed batsman, he began his first-class career with Middlesex (1864-67) and Kent (1868-69) before moving to Australia, where he represented Victoria (1870-71 to 1877-78) and appeared in the inaugural Test (v England in March 1877) scoring 15 and 3.

R.H.D (‘Rex’) Sellers, born at Bulsar (Valsad), India in 1940, was a tall leg-break and googly bowler who also won a solitary cap, v India at Calcutta in 1964, failing to score or take a wicket. He appeared in 39 matches for South Australia between 1959-60 and 1966-67.

The most recent, D.F. (‘Dav’) Whatmore, born in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1954, played in seven Tests in 1979 (two at home v Pakistan, followed by five in India) during the Packer schism. He averaged 22.53 with a top score of 77. His 95 appearances for Victoria produced an average of 34.87, ten hundreds and a record 123 catches, mostly at slip.

Below are Bill's responses to some of your questions posed at the end of his last column and if you have a question for Bill, leave it at the end of this blog entry, including your name and nationality, and he might answer it in his next piece.

Bill isn’t able to answer all of your questions, however. BBC Sport staff will choose a selection of them and send them to Bearders for him to answer.

Bearders' Answer: In Test matches the answer is much lower than you expected. Batsmen have yet to register three scores below 250: 229, 238 and 245.
As you would expect when assessing the scores in nearly 50,000 matches compared with just 1,841 Tests, the lowest individual score at first-class level is higher: 289. A surprising omission considering the next absentees are 326, 327 and 328.

Q: I think I was very lucky to witness the most unique hat-trick in Test cricket: Merv Hughes against West Indies in about 1988 in Perth. 3 wickets - 3 different overs - 2 innings, I think about 3 days apart. I am sure you will know the exact details. Obviously the uniqueness of this is only my opinion, but I would be pleased to hear of any better.
Adam Lloyd

Bearders' Answer: The Hughes hat-trick remains the most convoluted in Test cricket because it involved three separate overs in two innings. Bowling for Australia against West Indies in the Second Test at Perth in December 1988, he ended the first innings (on 3 December) by dismissing Curtly Ambrose with the last ball of his 36th over and Patrick Patterson with the first of his 37th. He then trapped Gordon Greenidge lbw with the first ball of their second innings (on 4 December). It was the 19th hat-trick in Tests, the first by an Australian for 31 years and only second to be taken over two innings following the one by Courtney Walsh in the previous Test.

Q: You kindly answered a question for me last year and I am hoping you could do so again. If a bowler bowls a legal delivery, the batsman hits the ball and the bowler takes the catch for a caught and bowled, can the bowler then, if the non-facing batsman is out of his crease, run out the non-facing batsman, taking two wickets with one delivery? Now, there is 5 Euro resting on your answer to this one, so feel free to agree with me and say no, it's not allowed!
Mike Kimber

Bearders' Answer: You are richer by five Euros, Mike. Cricket does not deal in double strikes! Once a batsman is out, the ball is dead - Law 23 (a) (iii). The fielding side can dismiss only one batsman from any one delivery.

Q: It is relatively unusual for a team's innings to have all 11 players reaching double figures. My question is: has there ever been a first-class game in which all 22 players in the match reached double figures in both innings?
John Martin

Bearders' Answer: No. There has not even been any instance at first-class level of all 22 players scoring ten or more in ONE of their two innings.

Q: A question that has been puzzling the local team I play for regarding run outs. When the stumps have been broken, the bails removed by a direct hit and the batsmen are in their ground, if they choose to run again due to the deflected ball, then, for a run out at the same end, one stump has to be lifted out of the ground with the ball in hand. What happens if, when the ball initially hits the stumps, only one bail is dislodged, leaving the second bail still perched on top of its two stumps? Would the fielding team have to break the stumps again or lift the stump out of the ground for the run out to be effective?
James Pickering

Bearders' Answer: If a bail is perched on top of the stumps it has not been completely removed. Therefore, according to Law 28 (1) (b), the wicket is not broken. The fielding team would have only to remove that bail and not lift a stump to accomplish a run out.

Q: When was the last time an England side fielded three Hampshire players? Has it ever happened?
Ralph Brooker

Bearders' Answer: Yes, six times. The last England team to include three current Hampshire players was at Kingsmead, Durban, in February 1923. That ended a sequence of those six instances in the space of seven Test matches; two against Australia (Old Trafford and The Oval) in 1921 and four out of five in South Africa in 1922-23. The Ashes trio comprised George Brown and Phil Mead (who both featured in all six instances), and the Honourable Lionel Tennyson (the last two of his nine England appearances). Alexander (‘Alec’) Kennedy was the third Hampshire man in South Africa.

Q: The Surrey v Sussex match ended in a draw without a ball being bowled last week with the teams being awarded 4 points each. Could the captains not have agreed to declare each innings closed at 0-0 and then tie the match, receiving 7 points each?
Andy

Bearders' Answer: Play has to have started for an innings to be declared closed. The only possible strategy would be for the captains to forfeit their innings but while they can forfeit either innings they cannot forfeit both - Law 14 (2). The ECB regulations governing the County Championship decree that ‘if, due to weather conditions play has started when less than eight hours playing time remains, the first innings of each side shall automatically be forfeited and a one innings match played.’

Q: When Andrew Flintoff took 5 for 56 in his last limited-overs international, those figures became his "best bowling," superseding the 4-14 figures which had previously been his best. My question is, why is this stat called "best" bowling and not "most wickets" or something? I'm sure most captains would rather have 4-14 than 5-56. If Steve Harmison took, say, 8-120 in an innings, would this really be "better" than 7-12?
Charles Lane

Bearders' Answer: A very good point, Charles. Tradition has overcome mathematical logic with the number of wickets taking precedence regardless of the tally of runs conceded.

Q: In an "Ask Bearders" from a few years ago, you mentioned that if a batsman is out stumped off a wide, the run is added to the batting team’s score while they also lose a wicket. What happens in a one-day situation if Team A score 240 off the allotted overs, and Team B are 240-9 when the last batsman is stumped off a wide? Does Team B win and, if so, how is the result recorded? Theoretically, Team B would be all out for 241 chasing 240.
Marc J

Bearders' Answer: A great scenario, Marc. Law 25 (8) – Stumped off a Wide - decrees that the wide and its penalty run stand regardless of the batsman being stumped. Team B’s total is therefore 241 and they have won the match. Law 21 (6) states ‘that as soon as a result is reached the match is at an end. Nothing that happens thereafter shall be regarded as part of it.’ Therefore Team B would win by one wicket.

Q: You often refer to a Test series as a 'rubber'. Can you tell me what the origin of this terminology is?
Jon Dunster

Bearders' Answer: Until fairly recently, a set of matches within a season was always referred to as a ‘rubber’, while the term ‘series’ signified the entire list of Tests between two countries played over many years. ‘Rubber’ has denoted a set of games in whist, backgammon and bowls for four centuries. As it originally denoted the deciding game of a set of three or five, it referred to the game that eliminated – or rubbed out – one of the contestants.

Q: Please refresh my memory! I was four when I went to my first Test match - at Headingley in 1930. My Father, Mother and brother took me and all have since died. It was the second day. In my memory, Bradman was not out, having scored 304 on the first day. Soon after play started, (perhaps in the first over) he was clean bowled by Bill Bowes and some time later there was a cloudburst over the ground and play was either washed out for the day or for the rest of the match. Which was it, please, and is it my imagination or did the above happen as my fading memory would have me believe?
William Hullah

Bearders' Answer: I think you have confused the 1930 and 1934 four-day Headingley Tests, probably because The Don scored a triple century in each of them (334 and 304) and rain helped England to draw both games.
In 1930 Bradman scored 309 on the first day (105, 115 and 89 in the three sessions), before being caught at the wicket off Maurice Tate after adding another 25 runs in 39 minutes. Australia made 566 and reduced England to 212-5 at stumps on the second day. Rain delayed play until 5.30 on the third evening and England (391 and 95-3) escaped with a draw.
Four years later Australia were 39-3 in reply to England’s 200 all out at stumps on the first day. Bradman began his innings with boundaries off the first two balls next day and had scored 271 (including two of the six sixes he hit in his entire Test career) out of 494-4 at stumps. He added 33 in 50 minutes on the third morning before being bowled by Bill Bowes, who took 6 for 142 in Australia’s 584 all out. England were 188-4 at the close and had moved to 229-6 on the final morning, still 155 behind, when a storm ended the match.

Q: Has any number eleven batsman ever scored a hundred in first-class cricket and what is the record partnership for the last wicket with number ten and eleven batsmen in first-class cricket?
Duncan Green

Bearders' Answer: Number 11 batsmen have scored ten hundreds in first-class cricket, with Peter Smith’s 163 for Essex v Derbyshire at Chesterfield in 1947 the highest by 37 runs.
The highest first-class tenth-wicket stand between numbers 10 and 11 is 249 in 190 minutes between Chandra Sarwate and ‘Shute’ Banerjee for the 1946 Indians v Surrey at The Oval.