Game reduced to farce

Leeds: After a break of three weeks when the ball was white, the overs and field positions restricted and they wore maroon and green, the West Indies had an unsatisfactory return to the traditional long game here yesterday.

The weather, grey and frigid, had reverted to what it has been for most of the supposed summer. Yorkshire treated the three-day match as an unwanted interruption in their county season and presented a team of novices. And the pitch, as usual at Headingley, demanded closer attention from batsmen who were either incapable or unwilling to apply themselves.

The upshot was a day dominated by West Indian bowlers but not all of them on the right side.

After the fit-again Courtney Walsh had gathered his inevitable fivewicket return in his first match since the Lord's Test almost a month ago as Yorkshire folded for 126, Lesroy Weekes responded with the first three wickets Chris Gayle, Adrian Griffith and Sherwin Campbell as the West Indies declined to 38 for four.

Ramnaresh Sarwan, with a little help from captain Jimmy Adams, halted the slide with an eye-catching, unbeaten 31 as they ended 83 without further loss.

Weekes is a West Indian name immediately associated with the batting of Everton and Ken. Lesroy is a fast bowler from Montserrat, built like a champion weightlifter, who played for the West Indies youth team and the Leewards before emigrating to Yorkshire for whom he is now qualified and was playing his second match.

He is lively and he beat all three of his victims for pace. Gayle and Campbell missed drives and had their off-stumps hit, Griffith was lbw moving back and across. It left the selectors no wiser as to which of the left-handers should partner Campbell in the third Test Thursday week.

When Wavell Hinds, after a couple of confident strokes, snicked his drive to the keeper off fast bowler Chris Elstub, one of eight uncapped players in the Yorkshire side, the West Indies were 38 for four and embarrassed.

In spite of two blows, to box and knee, that felled him, Sarwan made batting look straightforward in his wristy, easy way. Straightfoward is not an adjective readily applied to Adams' style, but he typically stuck it to when the umpires deemed the light sufficiently dim to halt play with nine overs available.

Touring team matches in most countries have been reduced to a farce and this was another example.

At least the West Indies have given them some relevance by designating representative teams of players with something to prove. Here they are a distraction for the counties, in spite of the winning incentive of £10 000 put up by the sponsors Vodafone.

All four Yorkshiremen named in the third Test squad Darren Gough, Michael Vaughan, Craig White and Matthew Hoggard had the match off as did Chris Silverwood and the Australian Darren Lehmann, both also Test caps.

Choosing to bat on winning the toss, they were 26 for four when Blakey, already put down by Jimmy Adams at third slip off Walsh, edged Corey Collymore low for the first of wicket-keeper Wayne Phillip's three neat catches.

Not sparing the sore instep that sidelined him through the One-Day series, Walsh went for an hour and 11 overs in his opening spell when his return was the wicket of opener Scott Richardson, fending off a catch to short-leg.

While Walsh rested, Victor Craven, a recruit from nearby Harrogate who turns 20 July 31, and Byas spent two hours in preventing a complete collapse.

Their left-handed partnership raised 70, Craven dealing positively with anything that offered him width and length to indulge his offside strokes.

He had nine fours in 53 when Hinds latched on to his firm on-drive off Collymore, low, two-handed, a couple of yards away at short-leg, a stunning catch.