Rain clouds over Castries threatened to sink England A’s hopes of landing ofa place in the Busta Cup semi-finals but Ryan Sidebottom made good use ofthe conditions to keep his team alive in the first day of the match againstWindward Islands
Kate Laven09-Feb-2001Rain clouds over Castries threatened to sink England A’s hopes of landing ofa place in the Busta Cup semi-finals but Ryan Sidebottom made good use ofthe conditions to keep his team alive in the first day of the match againstWindward Islands.
RyanSidebottom
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By the close, another top-class bowling spell from the Yorkshireman had putEngland A into a strong position against the bottom-of-the-table side andthe fears that no play would be possible, because of the unseasonal rains,proved unfounded.No play today would have posed England A with a serious problem. With 39 Cuppoints, England A are in a close battle with Guyana, Jamaica and LeewardIslands and needed a result from this match in St Lucia to take the pressureoff during the final clash against top of the table Leeward Islands nextweek.But the prolonged and heavy rains, that disrupted their preparations for thegame, returned last night to create further saturation to an alreadywaterlogged outfield and play was held up for two hours while thegroundstaff crawledacross the grass patting and stroking it with sponges.They did a fine job because after lunch play soon got underway, with theclouds still low which suited Mark Alleyne, who won the toss and invited theWindwards to bat against an attack he knew would create problems in theconditions.The skipper was right and during the first session to tea, they had moppedup four wickets, two of them in Sidebottom’s increasingly healthy-lookingaccount which resulted in an enthusiastic gang of schoolchildren collectingbehind the wire fence to observe him at closer quarters, intrigued by hisunusual head of hair – crimped and tinted with the hues of autumn – and insearch of his autograph, which if he continues to perform as he did today,may well be worth a few dollars.None of the Windwards top order distinguished themselves though opener DevonSmith hung around dourly to see off the new ball scoring 28 in the firstsession, mostly off Graeme Swann and Mark Alleyne. His fifth wicket standwith Gregory Wilson put on 29 but Sidebottom broke it up shortly after witha ball that rapped Smith on the pads and the appeal against him was upheld.Sidebottom picked up his fourth wicket by bowling captain Rawl Lewis aroundhis legs, the second batsman to find himself deceived by the quicker balland Swann, who had been guilty of bowling too short for much of the day,took care of Wilson with another lbw delivery.Shortly after five o’ clock, the clouds opened once more and with the scoreon 116 for seven, the players ran for cover returning for just two moreovers before bad light intervened with Windwards having added another eightruns to their total.By then however, England A had lost another valuable batsman to injury.Diving for a ball that had been pummelled through the covers by DeightonButler, Vikram Solanki injured his finger and immediately left the field.He was taken to hospital in Castries for X-rays but if scans show it to bebroken, there will be more problems for England A selectors who have seentwo key batsmen, David Sales and Aftab Habib return to the UK with injuries.The change of heart to replace Habib with Under 19 captain Ian Bell ofWarwickshire, after initially deciding to make do with the existing pack,may prove timely if Solanki is unable to continue but there will still be ahuge void in the slips after the Worcestershire all-rounder has notched up20 catches so far in the Busrta Cup, making him the leading fielder in thecompetition, ahead of any wicketkeeper.