Though harvested by the container load in Grenada, spice was in short supply at St George's today, although the drawn match against Guyana provided an opportunity for John Crawley to return to form with a worthy century.

Ian Ward was also back in the runs continuing his extraordinary stretch of good form with another long innings of 86, putting him firmly at the top of the Busta Cup table for most runs in the tournament with 444.

Neither innings were entertaining, as another dull draw was played out to earn England A six points and keep them in second place, behind Jamaica who had their match against Leeward Islands rained off.

The format of the competition where emphasis is on first innings points has attracted criticism from the England A players who believe it leads to dull cricket and takes away the fun of engineering outright victories.

But if you can't beat them, there is much to gain by joining them, and today England A became the kings of the killjoys, batting slowly to rule out any chance of a declaration or a result. Carl Hooper the opposition skipper made it clear that his side was not interested in batting again when he set a defensive field early on and stuck with it all day.

He kept the same bowlers on for entire sessions and more. His new ball bowler Kevin Darlington trundled in for an unbroken spell of 22 overs while the spinners, including Hooper himself, carried the rest of the load adopting negative tactics to restrict England A's scoring.

When the game was called off five overs before the scheduled end, England A had gathered 222 for one, Michael Powell caught behind early in the day for 24. But that was the only wicket that fell in a day that coach Peter Moores later described as `frustrating.'

"Our game plan this morning had been to get the runs, declare and have a bowl at them but they used negative tactics and made it very difficult for us to make runs which was frustrating."

But Moores said he was pleased with the performances and in particular James Foster, the 20 year-old wicketkeeper from Essex who grabbed his chance and made an impressive debut, scoring 53 in the first innings and making no mistakes with the gloves.

"He had an outstanding game. From the moment he walked into bat, he was confident and composed, using a very simple technique, which reminded me of Michael Vaughan. His keeping was also good - again, a simple technique and very tidy. We are really pleased with him.

"He is a good athlete and learns quickly so has good potential. By his own admission he has a lot of work to do but he has worked had on this trip. He's a nice lad to work with because he is aware - you tell him something and he slips it naturally into his game. He has good reactions and a bit of style - very talented.

"We threw him in at six to see how he would respond and he responded well. I have seen nothing in his technique which suggests he shouldn't be a top six batter but it is early days. We haven't seen him against real pace."

As to whether Foster retains the gloves for the fourth round match against Barbados, where the pitch is likely to be faster and bouncier, remains to be seen but with Chris Read's disappointing form in the opening two matches, Foster is well placed to play at Bridgetown.

© 2001 CricInfo Ltd