Canada dominates day 2 of their Intercontinental Match against Bermuda

Ashish Patel sets the pace for the Canadian attack © ICC

Canada dominated all three sessions of today's Intercontinental Match vs Bermuda.

When play began today with Canada at 158/6 ,Bermuda had hopes of restricting Canada to a modest score but overnight batsmen Ashish Bagai and Austin Codrington had other ideas.

In the first session to lunch Bagai and Codrington accomplished two things. First they brought Canada back into the driver's seat and secondly they silenced the critics who claimed that the pitch at this beautiful park was less than suitable for batting.

Both batsmen handled the bowling attack with easy and were in full command of their innings

Irvine Romaine top score for Bermuda with 40 © ICC

With the partnership at 87 Codrington (48) offered an easy return catch to Deylon Borden but the scoreboard now displayed a respectable score of 230 /7. Bagai (66) with the help of the tail enders brought the Canadian score closer to the next bonus point target of 250 and as soon as this was accomplished skipper John Davison declared the innings closed.

In the brief 20 minute session to lunch Bermuda lost one of the openers, Oliver Pitcher before he had scored and Canada never looked back.

The session between lunch and tea was a disaster for Bermuda with wickets falling frequently. Irvine Romaine (40) and Saleem Mukudden (26) were the only batsmen to offer any resistance and Bermuda were all out for 107 avoiding the follow on by a mere 7 runs. Skipper John Davison led the attack with figures of 14-4-19-5 but it was opening pace bowler Ashish Patel who got things going and ended with figures of 11-3-13-3.

OJ Pitcher bowled by Ashish Patel © ICC

The third session saw Canadian batsmen entertaining the home crowd as they pressed for quick runs to add to their first innings lead of 143. Again it was skipper John Davison leading the way with an undefeated innings of 55 including 5 fours and 2 sixes.

Going into the final day Canada's lead is 234 runs with 8 wickets in hand.

If the rain stays away Canada is now well set to qualify for the semi finals in Dubai later this year.