England A required cool heads today after a series of umpiring decisions went against them in their third round match against Guyana preventing them from forcing the follow-on.

By stumps, John Crawley's side had established a commanding 145 run lead over the home side and in bowling Guyana out for 288, earned themselves crucial first innings points.

Ramnaresh Sarwan Photo CricInfo

But there was disappointment and frustration in the England A camp when the possibility of winning the match was removed by a century from West Indies Test batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan which pushed Guyana beyond the 264 target set to enforce the follow on.

Sarwan was the subject of a controversial umpiring decision when on 28, an appeal for a catch behind was turned down. A second incident involving another unsuccessful appeal against Lennox Cush forced Crawley to suspend play while he gathered his players together to calm their frustrations.

"I called them together because a few things had gone against us and we had to regain our composure," he said afterwards.

"It's not something I have ever done before but I felt they could have become distracted by the frustration. I told them to put the disappointment of that decision out of their minds. Its not for me to comment whether it was out or not out.

"We felt it should have been out but that is only our opinion. We had a couple beforehand that should have gone our way but we still had a job to do. We had good players at the crease so we had to keep our focus.

"I did speak to the umpires about it, which is a private thing, but I will do a captain's report tomorrow morning when I have a calmer head. We cannot comment on the quality of the umpires but it was a frustrating day."

Despite that, England A's inexperienced bowling line-up showed discipline in the face of the world class talent of Carl Hooper and Sarwan.

Jonathan Lewis, making his debut for England A, made the early breakthrough in the fifth over of the day. He bowled an excellent line and was rewarded with the wicket of Keith Semple, giving wicketkeeper James Foster his first catch of the tour.

It brought Sarwan to the crease amid claims that the 20 year-old Test batsman was suffering a crisis of confidence after his disappointing tour of Australia. His faltering progress in the early overs suggested the claims were well-founded, but when his skipper joined him at the crease and opened his account with a six over long on off Chris Schofield, Sarwan appeared to settle. By lunch Sarwan had gathered 40 runs, the one chance given being rejected by the umpires.

His half century came in 109 balls and the loss of Hooper shortly after, to a superb diving catch by Foster off Ryan Sidebottom, prompted a more positive approach and his partnership with the attacking Vishal Nagamootoo, the younger brother of Test spinner Mahendra, presented England A with their most challenging period of the day.

It also gave spectators their main highlight as both players moved niftily into the ball driving at anything short of a length. Sarwan progressed swiftly to his century - his first in the Busta Cup - and Nagamootoo kept him company, trouncing the new ball advantage with the help of some loose bowling from the weary England A pacemen.

Sarwan was eventually caught behind cutting at Paul Franks for 122 having been at the crease for four and a half hours. But by then Guyana had reached the follow on target with three batsmen still waiting in the wings.

An inspirational over from Schofield, accounting for Nagamootoo with his first delivery then Eion Katchay and last man Kevin Darlington with the third and sixth, wrapped up the innings and gave Schofield the England A bowling honours with figures of 3-54.

The remaining five overs allowed England A to increase their lead as Ian Ward and Michael Powell added 20 without loss but discussions then ensued over the plan for the final day.

"Any side containing Hooper and Sarwan means we will be taking a slight gamble but whatever we do, even if we bat all day, we will do it positively to try and get a few guys some runs," said Crawley who is captaining the side after Mark Alleyne dropped himself.

"We feel the way Guyana have played the game shouldn't give them any chance to win. They chose two seamers and bowled with a ball that resembled an orange so they don't deserve a chance to try and get us out."

© 2001 CricInfo Ltd