TON-UP Ben Smith helped Worcestershire prove that the County Championship is alive and well when a big crowd watched them make a healthy start to their second division match against Hampshire at New Road.

Smith marked his first game as captain by cracking 104 as the sun-soaked County closed last night on 318-7 off 104 overs.

His splendid innings was the icing on the cake for Worcestershire who attracted their biggest gate for any single day of Championship cricket since accurate computer records began in 1999.

The attendance was 2,412 compared to the 1,503 crowd which turned up at New Road for the opening day of last season against Gloucestershire.

Yesterday also netted gate receipts of £5,000 to provide another swipe at doom-mongers who say that Championship cricket is a dead duck.

New Road chief executive Mark Newton said: "County cricket is not finished. If you play at the right time and the right day and you get lucky with the weather you are always going to get interest."

The County had budgeted to take around £4,000 for the whole of the match, but that figure was comfortably eclipsed by lunchtime yesterday. A total of 837 spectators -- 721 adults and 116 juniors -- paid to watch with members totalling 1,450.

Newton said: "By about lunchtime we had around 1,400 members in and the highest membership attendance for the whole of last season was in the region of 1,100. That's good news because last year our Championship attendances rose by 20 per cent overall anyway.

While New Road officials were rubbing their hands at the response to the match, Smith was doing the business out in the middle. His valuable contribution contained two sixes and 15 fours off 161 balls and followed half-centuries from Graeme Hick and Stephen Peters.

After Anurag Singh had fallen for eight, Peters and Hick put on 77 in 34 overs. Peters made 52, containing eight fours off 136 deliveries, before clipping paceman Alan Mullally to John Crawley at mid-wicket.

The Mullally-Crawley combination then accounted for Hick after he had put on 73 in 20 overs with Smith who later added a further 69 in 21 overs with Vikram Solanki (22).