Baugh (110) steals batting spotlight

DERBY: A day after further tarnishing the good name of Caribbean cricket with a thoroughly abysmal performance, some measure of sanity was restored on the second day of West Indies’ three-day tour match against Derbyshire yesterday. Fidel Edwards, Carlton Baugh and Sylvester Joseph played key roles in getting the visitors into a match-winning position. Edwards shrugged of his ordinary form so far on the tour, finding a lethal combination of rhythm and speed to slice through the hosts’ batting line-up in claiming five for 61. Supported well by left-arm wrist-spinner Dave Mohammed (three for 47), he engineered Derbyshire’s collapse from 159 for four to 188 all out just before lunch. Building on a modest first innings lead of 35 runs, Joseph made the most of a second chance to open the batting with a workmanlike innings of 77, but it was Baugh who stole the batting spotlight with a flurry of strokes that paced him to an unbeaten 110 and guided West Indies to 293 for six at stumps, an overall lead of 328.

With just one wicket from three previous First-Class matches, including the first Test at Lord’s, Edwards’ performance on a very hot day in the English midlands highlighted what a dangerously erratic performer he is. It is doubtful whether the 22-year-old was being seriously considered for next week’s third Test against England before this performance, but the selectors will be tempted to  have a rethink, particularly if he can reproduce that effort in the second innings. Generating fearsome pace and using the short ball sparingly, Edwards struck in his first over of the morning when Steve Selwood gloved a lifter to Baugh behind the stumps to set the home team back at 104 for three. At the other end, opening batsman Stephen Stubbings completed a painstaking half-century in just over three hours with five boundaries, but then lost fourth-wicket partner James Bryant, who showed no inclination to get in line to Edwards and had his off-stump sent cartwheeling. By then Edwards was fully up to speed and Stubbings, on 56, became his next victim, edging to acting captain Ramnaresh Sarwan at second slip.

Nathan Dumelow hung around with his captain, Luke Sutton, for some time without ever looking comfortable. Dropped almost as soon as he had arrived by Devon Smith at gully, Edwards eventually removed him via a miscued pull that offered a simple catch to Mohammed running in at cover. Mohammed then further accelerated Derbyshire’s already swift decline, deceiving Sutton with a googly to have him caught behind for 36, keeping Baugh busy again in stumping Nick Walker and then comprehensively bowling Paul Havell. A fourth-wicket seemed to be his for the taking before Sarwan quickly summoned Edwards to end the innings and the young fast bowler obliged with just his second delivery, bowling Neil Gunter to end a thoroughly satisfying morning for the Caribbean side. Given the chance courtesy of their bowlers to spend time at the crease in the second innings, openers Joseph and Devon Smith had put 41 runs on the board when the breakthrough came.

A straight drive from Joseph clipped the fingers of the bowler, Havell, and crashed into the stumps at the non-striker’s end with Smith well out of his ground and run out for 31, the identical score he made in the first innings. Dwayne Bravo, given another chance to get runs at the fall of the first wicket, struggled to get the ball off the square and perished in the first over from off-spinner Chris Paget, bowled between bat and pad for five. Paget, a 16-year-old Derbyshire newcomer, the second youngest to ever appear for the county, should have had two wickets in two balls, but Sutton missed the opportunity behind the stumps when Dwayne Smith was comprehensively beaten in flight. Unfazed by that fortunate escape, the first innings top scorer launched the next delivery into the lap of Walker on the deep midwicket boundary. In that display of utterly senseless cricket, Smith had effectively made the West Indies selectors’ job considerably easier if they were harbouring thoughts of considering him for the remaining two Tests.

In contrast, Joseph, with three previous innings of 114, 68 and 23 on the tour, was doing his best to mandate a Test debut in six days in Manchester, reaching his 50 with nine fours off 95 balls. Hoisting the medium-pacer, Gunter, for six back over the bowler’s head, the attacking right-hander was well on course for a second hundred in as many matches when Paget, who looks a very promising prospect, deceived him in flight and bowled him through the gate 23 runs short of the century-mark. His demise broke a 96-run fourth-wicket partnership with Baugh, who increased the tempo even as Omari Banks and Sarwan fell cheaply to slip catches by Hassan Adnan off the first innings destroyer, Nathan Dumelow. Baugh, whose innings and tidy work behind the stumps must earn him consideration for the next Test, took a particular liking to Dumelow, smashing the off-spinner for three sixes over long-on.

With the incumbent wicketkeeper-batsman, Ridley Jacobs, looking on at the other end, he completed an entertaining fifth First-Class hundred in two and a half hours off 121 balls with eight fours and three sixes. As much as he would like to get a few more runs as well, Jacobs, who has contributed 25 to an unbroken 76-run seventh-wicket stand, may not have too much time, if any, on the final morning with the priority for the West Indies surely being to give their bowlers a fair chance at completing victory to lift their spirits ahead of the final two Tests against a supremely confident England side. (CMC)