Sidebottom puts England A on top

Rain clouds over Castries threatened to sink England A's hopes of landing of a place in the Busta Cup semi-finals but Ryan Sidebottom made good use of the conditions to keep his team alive in the first day of the match against Windward Islands.

By the close, another top-class bowling spell from the Yorkshireman had put England A into a strong position against the bottom-of-the-table side and the fears that no play would be possible, because of the unseasonal rains, proved unfounded.

No play today would have posed England A with a serious problem. With 39 Cup points, England A are in a close battle with Guyana, Jamaica and Leeward Islands and needed a result from this match in St Lucia to take the pressure off during the final clash against top of the table Leeward Islands next week.

But the prolonged and heavy rains, that disrupted their preparations for the game, returned last night to create further saturation to an already waterlogged outfield and play was held up for two hours while the groundstaff crawled across the grass patting and stroking it with sponges.

They did a fine job because after lunch play soon got underway, with the clouds still low which suited Mark Alleyne, who won the toss and invited the Windwards to bat against an attack he knew would create problems in the conditions.

The skipper was right and during the first session to tea, they had mopped up four wickets, two of them in Sidebottom's increasingly healthy-looking account which resulted in an enthusiastic gang of schoolchildren collecting behind the wire fence to observe him at closer quarters, intrigued by his unusual head of hair - crimped and tinted with the hues of autumn - and in search of his autograph, which if he continues to perform as he did today, may well be worth a few dollars.

None of the Windwards top order distinguished themselves though opener Devon Smith hung around dourly to see off the new ball scoring 28 in the first session, mostly off Graeme Swann and Mark Alleyne. His fifth wicket stand with Gregory Wilson put on 29 but Sidebottom broke it up shortly after with a ball that rapped Smith on the pads and the appeal against him was upheld.

Sidebottom picked up his fourth wicket by bowling captain Rawl Lewis around his legs, the second batsman to find himself deceived by the quicker ball and Swann, who had been guilty of bowling too short for much of the day, took care of Wilson with another lbw delivery.

Shortly after five o' clock, the clouds opened once more and with the score on 116 for seven, the players ran for cover returning for just two more overs before bad light intervened with Windwards having added another eight runs to their total.

By then however, England A had lost another valuable batsman to injury. Diving for a ball that had been pummelled through the covers by Deighton Butler, Vikram Solanki injured his finger and immediately left the field.

He was taken to hospital in Castries for X-rays but if scans show it to be broken, there will be more problems for England A selectors who have seen two key batsmen, David Sales and Aftab Habib return to the UK with injuries.

The change of heart to replace Habib with Under 19 captain Ian Bell of Warwickshire, after initially deciding to make do with the existing pack, may prove timely if Solanki is unable to continue but there will still be a huge void in the slips after the Worcestershire all-rounder has notched up 20 catches so far in the Busrta Cup, making him the leading fielder in the competition, ahead of any wicketkeeper.