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Day of the Roses at Sabina Park Kate Laven - 2 February 2001
It was a day of the Roses in Kingston today. The best of the White Roses, Ryan Sidebottom and Chris Silverwood, shared eight wickets and Jamaica's new ball bowler Franklyn Rose put paid to Ian Ward's sensational run of form.
The early departure of the Surrey opening batsman who has made three centuries and accumulated a table topping 579 runs from seven innings, came as a shock after he had added just two runs to his tally, but the extra pace and bounce extracted by the West Indies and former Northamptonshire pace man Franklyn Rose saw him edge the ball to second slip with a mistimed shot. Michael Powell also went cheaply and by the close of the first day's play in this fifth round Busta Cup match, England A were trailing the home side by 130 runs with the score 44 for two. The skies above Sabina Park were full of cloud when play got underway and on a pitch that promised early pace and movement, the toss was not such a bad one to lose for Mark Alleyne who has a success rate of three good calls in five matches. But at lunch, the England A seamers were still to make an impression, allowing Jamaica opener Chris Gayle to establish himself with some superbly executed shots to the boundary. His reputation in question after he was dropped for the tour of Australia on account of temperament problems, the 21 year-old opening bat took command early on, making good use of his feet to punch the ball hard to the boundary. His running between the wickets was kept to a minimum following difficulties in the last match when he had to leave the field twice, suffering a recurrent heart murmur condition. By lunch, he had completed a half century in 69 deliveries, eight of them leaving England A's frustrated bowlers with hands on hips as they watched the ball scurrying across a fast outfield to the boundary. The second ball after lunch, bowled by off-spinner Graeme Swann who was making his debut on this tour, saw Gayle push tentatively and edge the ball to Vikram Solanki in the slips and having made 56 Jamaica's leading run scorer was on his way, to the delight of the bowlers. Wickets came thick and fast for England A seamers after that with Chris Silverwood adding to his one wicket of the morning with a further two in the afternoon, helped perhaps by a sudden spell of strong winds which caused the Busta Cup logo mat to flap viciously, distracting the batsmen. Groundsmen were summonsed to the bowlers end to secure the mat but by then Jamaica had fallen to 139 for five and Sidebottom was gearing himself up for a demon spell after tea which effectively wiped out the final five Jamaica wickets for 14 runs. He had help too but this time from the England A fielders, most notably Ian Ward who pulled off a magnificent finger tip catch diving to his left to dismiss Wayne Cuff when he was just four runs short of his fifty. Using the overcast conditions, Sidebottom was able to swing the ball markedly and in his latter spell found the line and length he had struggled with in the morning session. He ended the innings with 5-31 from 17.5 overs to wrap up Jamaica's first innings for 174 but afterwards said it was a good return from a mediocre effort. "I got the ball to swing around in the morning but my line was not very good so I was pretty upset but we had a talk in the dressing room at lunch and the coach told me to get my basics right and follow through properly and after that, it went really well," he said. "We thought it would be a good cricket wicket and it would seam around a bit because it was overcast so it was a case of getting the ball in the right area and it worked for us. Later on it became even more overcast and it swung around more. I was also quite lucky. I didn't think I bowled particularly well so I'll take that and am quite pleased," he commented. © 2001 CricInfo Ltd
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