THE cricket season enters its final week with most of its winners and losers sorted out.

Australia have The Ashes; Yorkshire the County Championship and Somerset the Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy.

The Norwich Union Leagues remain to be decided together with some matters of promotion and relegation, but I wonder who's watching outside those counties intimately involved?

England's footballing success has highlighted the switch to the winter season.

Something which will not be lost on those who meet shortly to reconsider the structure of domestic cricket for 2003. Mind you, September is a lot more clement than when the season began back in a rainy Spring in April.

Worcestershire's washout against Glamorgan made yesterday's NUL game with Durham Dynamos a promotion play-off.

In the County Championship, the relegation places in Division One are currently occupied by the three teams who were promoted last year: Northants, Glamorgan and Essex.

Will their 2001 equivalents Sussex, Hampshire and Middlesex fare any better next year?

If they don't, the sense of the Second Division as being second rate will inevitably grow - another factor which the ECB Review of domestic cricket may well take into account.

What do they need to sustain success at the higher level?

Weight of runs, penetrative bowlers and strength in depth, or luck with injuries, I would say. No surprises there I suppose.

Certainly, at the start of the year I said that it was not enough for Worcestershire to gain promotion; they needed to have a side strong enough to maintain that position.

Well, promotion in the CricInfo County Championship is not going to happen, but the question still needs to be asked as to whether the side is moving in the right direction.

Measured against the essential factors listed above, most glaringly we come up short on weight of runs.

Worcestershire have the same number of wins as the three teams above them who each may gain promotion, but the number of losses and lack of batting points leaves us short.

There is still an unhealthy dependence on Graeme Hick's runs despite the opening situation being largely resolved by Philip Weston's resurgence and Anurag Singh's successful transfer.

On the bowling front, seam and swing are getting there, while Matt Rawnsley has endured a difficult season with long periods of inactivity on seamer friendly pitches, an experience, nevertheless, from which I am sure he will have learnt a lot.

Steve Rhodes looks set to maintain his form and fitness for a while yet despite one scare this year.

Stuart Lampitt needs a good rest to regain some of the sharpness which years of hard work have dulled.

Some elements of the team are maturing nicely, others inevitably will not improve any further with the passing years.

Tom Moody will need to look closely at the middle order to produce a squad capable and worthy of First Division status.

Interestingly, the three teams certain to be in both top divisions next year are Somerset, Leicestershire and Kent, two of which have outstanding pitch and practice facilities.