Wyatt shines for County

Date: Monday 20 April 2009

Close of Day One: Leics 182 (Boyce 45, Benn 4-31, Richardson 3-46) lead West Indies 80-4 (Wyatt 2-15) by 102 runs.

An excellent display by Leicestershire’s young bowlers bought the team right back into contention in the tourist game against the West Indies at Grace Road.

Alex Wyatt (2-15) and Harry Gurney (1-32) swung the ball nicely, and Jigar Naik (1-5) also extracted turn to take a wicket himself.

It was the tall Wyatt who caught the eye early on. He enticed Dale Richards to nick towards Jim Allenby at first slip, but he couldn’t quite cling on as Matthew Boyce dived in front of him also attempting to catch the opener.

However, the bowler soon got his man when Richards drove uppishly to James Taylor at point, and he then claimed the prized wicket of Ramnaresh Sarwan.

The elegant batsman gave England’s fast men a headache on numerous occasions during the winter tour, but he wasn’t allowed to have County reaching for aspirin as Wyatt forced him to nick to Allenby, who held a good, low catch.

Naik then trapped Devon Smith with just his second ball and Gurney got a deserved wicket by dismissing Narsingh Deonarine in the same fashion with what turned out to be the last ball of the day.

Lendl Simmons was the unbeaten batsmen at stumps after compiling a patient 21.

County needed a good show after their innings – which had started promisingly – suffered a wobble before and after lunch down to some excellent bowling by Sulieman Benn (4-31), who was the outstanding bowler on the first day of the West Indies' tour.

Boyce batted beautifully for his 45, driving well and seeing off the new ball threat of the impressive Lionel Baker – who could so easily have become a Leicestershire bowler this season - and Andrew Richardson.

Opening partner Tom New battled gamely too, but was adjudged lbw for four from the bowling of Baker.

Josh Cobb (11) also showed a desire to battle, and he was a tad unfortunate to be bowled by Benn, who turned one out of the rough and bowled him off his pad.

Benn then struck a crucial double blow after the interval, having Boyce caught on the sweep and having Boeta Dippenaar (4) caught in the slips.

Darren Sammy trapped James Taylor (4) lbw inbetween to mean an unwanted wicket burst of Leics’ point of view, who were now 108-5 after being 77-1.

Allenby played nicely for 28 until Benn also had him caught in the slips, and Wayne White (37*) and Carl Crowe (21) also held up the Windies’ charge.

Crowe, however, became the first of three wickets for Richardson, who also dismissed Naik and Gurney without scoring.

Wyatt (3) was run out to end the innings on a low note, but he got the bowling off to a flyer in the reply.

The bowling innings did come at a cost though, with Allenby having to leave the field after pulling up in his delivery stride.

County: Boyce, New, Cobb, Allenby, Taylor, Dippenaar, White, Crowe, Naik, Gurney, Wyatt.

Windies: Smith, Richards, Sarwan, Simmons, Deonarine, Nash, Ramdin (c and wk), Sammy, Benn, Baker, Richardson.