West Indies Under-19s make hard work of victory

West Indies Under-19s made hard work of beating their English counterparts in the 50-over day-night match at Hove.

Opener Devon Smith hit a fine 75 off 120 balls but the tourists, chasing a modest target of 143, did not clinch victory until the penultimate delivery of the match with two wickets remaining.

West Indies appeared to be cruising at 108 for three but they were overcome by panic and ended up needing two off the final over from Gordon Muchall with three wickets left.

Ryan Austin tied the scores with a single off the second ball but Omari Banks was then caught at short extra cover.

Kenroy Peters was unable to score from his first ball and was then dropped by Nadeem Malik, running in at short third man, as West Indies crept home.

Smith shared in an opening stand of 58 with Brenton Parchment (12) and added 44 for the fourth wicket with Narsingh Deonarine (13).

Parchment was caught at first slip off Chris Tremlett and Kent left-arm spinner Robert Ferley (2-26) later sent back Vishal Arjune (1) and Tonito Willett (0) in successive overs.

Smith, who was dropped by wicket-keeper Stephen Pope on 56 off Ferley, fell with his side 25 short of victory when he skied Tremlett to the long on boundary.

England made West Indies work hard for their runs but were left to rue a poor batting performance in the first of the three-match series.

They made the worst possible start after winning the toss with Kadeer Ali and skipper Ian Bell being removed with only eight scored.

Fast bowler Andrew Richardson, who had Bell caught at mid off, struck again to have Muchall caught behind by Carlton Baugh diving to his right.

Opener Gary Pratt had made 25 off 59 balls when he came down the wicket to Peters and was bowled.

Yorkshire's John Sadler (35) and Bilal Shafayat (24), of Nottinghamshire, launched a partial recovery by sharing a fifth-wicket stand of 53 in 19 overs before off spinner Deonarine had Sadler well caught at long on.

This sparked a collapse with five wickets crashing for ten runs in four overs, Deonarine grabbing three of them to finish with three for 13 off seven overs.

Tremlett and Kyle Hogg were run out for ducks in this disastrous spell for England leaving last-wicket pair, Pope and Malik, to add 32 in the final seven overs.