Few English keepers bat or have batted sufficiently high in the order for their counties to be considered as Stewart's deputy in one-day cricket. Rob Turner and Martin Speight have their admirers, Russell Warren is more of a stop-gap keeper; and now there is Keith Brown, though he only started to open Middlesex's batting this season.

Still, Brown yesterday hit his second hundred of the Benson and Hedges qualifying rounds, 109 from 115 balls. Middlesex had already qualified before the match, and had secured home advantage for the quarter-finals, but Glamorgan were at full stretch in their attempt to make the second place in their group ahead of Essex.

Brown may seem an unlikely candidate for a World Cup squad, being your archetypal salt-of-the-earth pro, and 35 years old, but such a profile forms part of his qualification. England's last World Cup appearance - 'campaign' would be too strong a word - was such an embarrassment precisely because it was undertaken by tired Test players who didn't want to know; better to have county pros who are lesser cricketers but utterly motivated to make the most of their moment in the sun.

Brown, admittedly, has not been a fortunate surname for World Cup aspirants. Alistair of Surrey could not manage the step up to international bowling in Sharjah, while Dougie of Warwickshire was so expensive in the West Indies that the new ball will go to Darren Gough and Chris Lewis in the one-day internationals against South Africa. But the third Brown might be lucky, if Stewart is not so, as a bucolic opening bat and a keeper of equally few frills.

He certainly made all the running as Middlesex put together a total that was a tall order for a team who are not tall to beat, and which lacked Matthew Maynard, who has a groin strain. In the first 15 overs Brown went down on one knee and swept the pace bowlers - though not Steve Watkin - from outside off stump, and subsequently worked the ball un-glamorously into the gaps.

He faced only 18 balls more than Justin Langer, who, still unattuned to low bounce, drove firmly to fielders. It seemed a crucial moment when Langer, before scoring, drove low to Steve James at extra cover, who spilled it to his right: Glamorgan had to peg Middlesex to an attainable target, and knock them off rapidly to squeeze in front of Essex on run-rate.

While Brown swept the Glamorgan spinners, and reverse-swept Dean Cosker, his partners came and went without great profit until Jason Pooley took four consecutive fours off Darren Thomas in the 46th over of the Middlesex innings. Waqar Younis was expensive in his mid-innings burst - four overs for 26 - but came back to take two wickets for eight in his last three overs of yorkers, though Sophia Gardens has always been too green to rough up the ball for reverse-swing.

If Middlesex had Brown to sustain them, Glamorgan had their 'pinch-hitter', Robert Croft, who is making a no less compelling case to open in the World Cup if Stewart is injured. Promoted after Glamorgan's first qualifying game of the season, he has blazed away, using his feet to pace bowlers as so few specialist batsmen do.

This time Croft propelled Glamorgan to 83 and himself to 50 by the time he miscued a catch - off a spinner though - in the 12th over. Langer, reprieved himself, had in turn reprieved Croft when 22 at short extra cover and Glamorgan's opening assault was only just taking shape.

Even so, Glamorgan at that stage had passed 31, which was their total when Middlesex visited here for the championship match last season. Glamorgan were top of the table at the time, and such a collapse could have been a turning-point - downwards. But as Glamorgan were tumbled out, Maynard and their coach Duncan Fletcher laughed on the balcony at the absurdity of the cricket.

Glamorgan had to knock off the runs in 39 overs. They were bang on course and more when they reached 100 in the 15th over, with Steve James running zestfully and Darren Thomas sent in to emulate Croft in his hitting, but the rest of the batting to come was not the strongest in the absence of Maynard and Hugh Morris, though the latter was on the ground in his new capacity as the ECB's director of coaching.

So ends the Benson and Hedges Cup in its qualifying rounds, without too many a tear. The competition has been useful for encouraging batsmen to play their shots in early season, but there have been too many matches, or rather mis-mismatches. It is inconceivable that Australia would waste Shane Warne and the Waughs by setting them against Northern Territory or Canberra University.