FORMER Test cricketers Rod Marsh and Geoff Miller bowled over a large audience at the official launch of Clydesdale Bank in Kent.

On the day that parent company National Australia Bank - sponsors of the Twenty20 competition - announced the closure of 100 branches in Scotland and Northern England the two Test stars entertianed guests in Leeds Castle.

Clydesdale Bank recently opened its financial solutions centres in Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells as part of a new business to business strategy in the South East.

The bank recently handled an £18 million management buy-out for Holiday Extras, the Hythe-based specialist tourism add-ons company.

The bank now employs 23 staff in Kent and plans to take on more as the business expands.

The HQ operation in Turkey Mill, Maidstone, moves to new offices in Tolherst Court later in the year.

Adrian Wenn, managing partner, admitted that the timing of the launch event, coninciding with the announcement of job losses and closure of Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank branches, could have been better. But closures in the North were balanced by growth in the South.

He said: "The branches that are closing represent no more than one per cent of the customer base of the bank in the North and in Scotland. It's a very small minority of people these days who use the branches."

He said NAB was investing £50 million into its southern operations.

Marsh, the former Australian wicketkeeper, said that the Test squad that England faced in the Ashes series this summer was the best that had ever left Australia.

The outgoing director of the England cricket academy said England could win, but only if all the players performed above their normal level.

But England had won the Botham series in 1981 against the odds and it was possible that something like that could happen again, he said.