Edwards takes 10, WI crush Derbyshire

DERBY: Fidel Edwards completed his first ten-wicket match haul in first-class cricket in bowling West Indies to a crushing 315-run victory over Derbyshire 20 minutes before tea on the final day of their three-day match yesterday. Repeating the fearsome pace and hostility of the first innings, but to even more devastating effect, the 22-year-old fast bowler ripped through the home team’s batting line-up in claiming five for 22, lifting his match analysis to ten for 83, as the hosts, set the unlikely target of 404, were routed for just 88.

In rediscovering the rhythm that is so important to his success as a bowler, Edwards has all but confirmed a recall for next week’s third Test against England at Old Trafford. The squad left for Manchester immediately after the match with their spirits lifted, particularly after a horrendous batting display on the first day, and with the additional encouragement of left-arm spinner Dave Mohammed offering them another spinning option on a pitch that is forecasted to favour the slow bowlers once again. After claiming three scalps in the first innings, Mohammed troubled all the batsmen he bowled to the second time around, picking up two wickets and having three catches dropped off his bowling. Derbyshire would have only been thinking of survival when Ramnaresh Sarwan declared the West Indies second innings at 368 for six after just over an hour of the morning session.

In that time, Carlton Baugh and Ridley Jacobs smashed another 75 runs, Baugh finishing unbeaten on 150 off 182 balls with 13 fours and four sixes, while Jacobs contributed an unbeaten 59 to an unbroken seventh-wicket partnership of 151. The only questions being asked at the lunch interval was how long it would take for West Indies to complete the demolition job, and when Edwards had James Bryant caught at the wicket to the very first ball on the resumption, making the score 16 for five, it seemed only a matter of minutes before the final rites would have been performed.