CRICKET: Ireland's Ed Joyce yesterday became the first player to score 600 runs in English first-class cricket this season and has now established himself as the form batsman in the County Championship, writes James FItzgerald.

Joyce, who has been freed by Middlesex to play for Ireland for the crucial ICC Trophy in July, made 93 at Lord's, bringing his tally so far this season to 605 at an impressive average of 86.42.

The former Dublin University and Merrion left-hander will this summer become eligible to play for England, having satisfied the four-year qualification regulations, and his performances since establishing himself in the first team at Lord's have caught the eye of selectors at the highest levels in the ECB.

It is now thought likely he will be given a chance to impress further with a place in an England A tour in the autumn.

Last month, Middlesex agreed to release Joyce for the first week of the ICC Trophy, the qualifying tournament for the 2007 World Cup, which will be held in Belfast, Derry and Dublin during the first two weeks of July. If Ireland finish in the top five at that tournament they will earn the right to play in the World Cup finals in the West Indies in two years' time.

ATHLETICS: The Olympic gold-medallist Mark Lewis-Francis has escaped a ban after testing positive for cannabis at this year's European Indoor Championships.

After finishing second behind his Athens 4x100metres team-mate Jason Gardener on March 5th, Lewis-Francis underwent a compulsory drugs test, and small traces of the drug were detected in his sample. He has been stripped of his silver medal and given a public warning by UK Athletics but remains free to compete after it was accepted the drug could not have been taken to enhance his performance.

The athlete has denied taking the drug: "I do not smoke cannabis. My only explanation is that I may, without realising it, have been in the presence of people who were smoking cannabis and that I passively inhaled their smoke.

"I have not knowingly taken this substance and have not attained any performance-enhancing benefits."