Young attack held up

Date: Tuesday 21 April 2009

Close of Day Two: Leics 182 (Boyce 45, Benn 4-31, Richardson 3-46) and 51-1 (Boyce 19*, Cobb 17*) trail West Indies 320-6d (Simmons 102, Nash 78) by 87 runs.

Lendl Simmons and Brendan Nash both batted well to hold up the charge of Leicestershire’s young attack at Grace Road on the second day of the tourist match against West Indies.

Simmons and Nash both had to retire hurt after making 102 and 78 respectively as the Windies made 320-6d in their first innings, with Alex Wyatt (3-42 off 21 overs) the pick of the attack.

Jigar Naik also bowled nicely to take 1-33 from 16.5 overs, while Harry Gurney was unlucky to just pick up the one wicket at a cost of 58 runs from 22 overs.

In reply, County lost Tom New to a brutish ball from Andrew Richardson without scoring, but Matthew Boyce and Josh Cobb saw things through to the close as Leics finished on 51-1, 87 runs behind their visitors.

Earlier in the day, Simmons and Nash both played nicely as they took the West Indies away from their less-than-satisfactory overnight score of 80-4.

Both made half-centuries, with Simmons posting his from 108 balls with five fours and a six and Nash’s more patient knock coming from 132 balls with eight fours.

Simmons then got through to his century from 192 balls with eleven fours and a six. However, it was not without scare as Gurney could have dismissed him twice during the course of proceedings.

A decent lbw shout was turned down early in the day, and the left-arm seamer also had the same batsman dropped at slip by the usually reliable Boeta Dippenaar later in the afternoon.

Still, the elegant right-hander survived to get through to his ton, and then retired hurt shortly after.

Nash suffered the same fate later in the afternoon, with Darren Sammy and Denesh Ramdin the two men dismissed on the second day.

Sammy was held by Dippenaar in the slips to give Wyatt a third wicket, while Ramdin (32) became Dippenaar’s maiden first-class wicket as Boyce held a good catch on the boundary to end the innings.

The Windies declared at the fall of the sixth wicket, as they would have had to pull out a ball later as first-innings rules in tourist games restricts a side to 100 overs.

A hostile opening spell from Lionel Baker and Richardson was then going to take some negotiating, and although New fell in unfortunate fashion, Boyce and Cobb played well.

Both found the boundary on four occasions, with Cobb stroking two beauties through mid-on.

Ramdin shuffled the pack to give Sammy, Narsingh Deonarine and Sulieman Benn a bowl, but the batsmen held firm to set up an interesting final day.

* Picture supplied by Michael Eden