Young Men's Social Club's failure to field 11 players for Sunday's season opener against Police is not an indication of what opponents can expect from the Central Counties club this season, team official Webster Mills assured yesterday.

Social Club only had five players available for the match against Police at Police Field where the two official umpires also failed to appear.

"We have a lot of players, it's just that we have a lot of guys working in the hotels and two guys were away,'' explained Mills yesterday.

"Usually they knock off from the hotel by 12.30, 1.00 and don't get to the field until after 1.00, so it was expected that we were going to be short. I just didn't think we were going to be that short.

"We had five there and two others came and saw that there wasn't a game so they left.'' Mills admitted not being able to field the minimum seven players wouldn't help their case to have the match rescheduled, even though there were no umpires.

Police are requesting that the points be awarded to them on a defaulted win.

"I just hate to see games given away like that,'' said Mills.

"But I'm not concerned, I know we'll have a team next week, for sure. I just want to keep this team going.

"I know we'll do better. I'm just glad that it's one league and overs. We'll pick ourselves up and look forward to next week.'' This Sunday, Social Club are at home to Devonshire Rec. at Nationals.

Flatts and Cleveland produced the two surprise results on Sunday to send out an early warning of their capabilities. Flatts shocked Willow Cuts by six runs in the day's closest result while Cleveland were 48-run winners over Southampton Rangers.

West Indian Wendell White of Somerset stroked the season's first century -- 105 -- as Somerset amassed the biggest total of the day (303) in a 46-run win over Devonshire Rec. Other big scores were Janeiro Tucker's 96 for Southampton Rangers, Bay skipper Charlie Marshall's 72 against St. David's, Aaron Adams' 69 for Cleveland and Anthony Amory's 67 for Devonshire Rec.

The best-performing fielder in cricket's Premier League this season will win two round-trip airline tickets to the US after a new sponsorship deal was sealed yesterday.

TeleBermuda International agreed to widen their Safe Hands award, which last season applied only to Cup Match, to take in the whole league season.

The best fielder in each match will be nominated by the umpires and the player with most nominations at the end of the league season will win the prize and a trophy.

TBI also agreed to buy the balls used for Island cricket for a second successive year. Tamiko Black, product manager of TBI, yesterday handed over a cheque for $10,000 to Bermuda Cricket Board of Control president El James to pay for the balls.

James welcomed the deal and said the backing would help struggling local clubs to survive.