Bairstow provides reminder of his talent

It may prove to be his only innings of the tour, but Jonny Bairstow provided a welcome reminder of his talents with a fine innings of 98 on the first day of England's latest two-day warm-up match against a St Kitts Invitational XI at Warner Park.

The invites to that XI have clearly been sent far and wide. For the St Kitts team today included Jonathan Trott, Gary Ballance, Joe Root and Bairstow. And while Trott and Ballance failed to take the opportunity to shine against the bowling of their England colleagues, Root and Bairstow took the chance to impress with accomplished innings.

Bairstow, with the squad as a reserve wicketkeeper and destined to spend much of the next few weeks ferrying drinks and batting gloves to his colleagues, looked in fine form. Cutting especially sweetly, he punished Chris Jordan for dropping short, looked compact in defence and balanced in attack. He eventually fell two short of a well-deserved century, poking at one that left him outside off stump.

Until he came to the wicket, it seemed England might endure a pretty wretched day. The early departure of Trott, drawn into poking at a decent ball that bounced and left him, for a third-ball duck was far from what was required at this early stage of his comeback. While England will be pleased that Anderson found movement and bounce with the new ball, they would dearly like to have seen Trott provide further evidence of his replenished confidence.

As ever with these things, the real test will be how Trott deals with the setback. The evidence here - he soon played a part as 12th man and had a brief net with batting coach Mark Ramprakash - was mildly reassuring. Trott remains his most fierce critic and might reflect that he is far from the first opening batsman to edge an Anderson delivery to the slips.

Ballance also struggled. While he picked off Anderson, straying on to the left-hander's legs uncharacteristically often, comfortably enough, he was nicely caught behind by Jos Buttler when attempting to cut a delivery just a little close to him.

Worse still, Stuart Broad slipped as he delivered the fourth delivery of his spell and went over on his left ankle. After a lengthy stoppage for treatment of both the ankle and the pitch - overnight rain rendered it slippery and, for a while, England's seamers had to be content with bowling around the wicket - the bowler limped off. But England's anxiety was eased when Broad returned after about an hour and bowled a couple of decent spells at something approaching full pace.

Ben Stokes was the pick of the seamers; James Tredwell the spinners. While Stokes gained movement that few of his colleagues could replicate, he also bowled with admirable control. Tredwell, gaining a bit of turn and benefiting from a strong wind to assist his drift, was far more consistent than Adil Rashid, who probably bowled himself out of contention in a display containing more full-tosses and long-hops than could be acceptable in international cricket.

The original plan was for Adam Lyth to open the batting with Alastair Cook on Thursday, with the St Kitts side using Liam Plunkett and Mark Wood as bowlers. The failure of Trott and struggles of Ballance may well change that, though England also hope to give Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes some time at the crease. If Lyth bats especially impressively, he might yet displace Trott for the first Test team.

Meanwhile it has emerged that Peter Moores and Paul Farbrace will manage the team in the ODI in Ireland on May 8. While it was originally decided that the pair - and all the players involved in this tour - would be rested from the Ireland trip, it has now been confirmed that Moores and Farbrace will return from the Caribbean to Gatwick at around 6am on May 7, catch a flight to Ireland that morning and take training in the afternoon.

It might also be that several of this squad - not least Bairstow - return to the UK as soon as the Barbados Test begins and it is clear that they will not be required with a view to playing in that ODI.