da dobrowin： England A completed a comprehensive win over Windward Islands today earningmaximum points in the Busta Cup and a free day on the beach before theytravel to Anguilla for their seventh round match against Leeward Islands
Kate Laven11-Feb-2001England A completed a comprehensive win over Windward Islands today earningmaximum points in the Busta Cup and a free day on the beach before theytravel to Anguilla for their seventh round match against Leeward Islands.The game was wrapped up quickly in St Lucia after England A set Windwards atarget of 159 to avoid an innings defeat. Having been dismissed for 288 inthe morning session, England A needed less than 50 overs to snap up all tenwickets, seven of them going to the spin attack of Graeme Swann, whofinished with match figures of 9-62 to earn him man of the match award, andChris Schofield who took 3-45.Few of the Windward batsmen put up any resistance though Devon Smith made awatchful 42 and John Eugene held up the tourists progress with a powerfullystruck 23 before being bowled around his legs by Schofield.By 5.00pm, the presentations had been made and the Vodafone shirts were backon the field playing football as part of their warm down exercises. Butdespite having three victories in the tournament, they still cannot beassured of their place in the semi-finals until the results of the othermatches in Berbice and Nevis are known later tomorrow.Guyana, who are playing Jamaica, and Barbados who won first innings pointsagainst Leeward Islands, both need victories to deny England A a chance inthe Busta International Shield, which will be contested by the four topteams in the qualifying Busta Cup.The expert performances of the England A players in exploiting theopposition weaknesses was a point highlighted by skipper Mark Alleyne, whotop scored for England A with a comfortable 64.”You look at the table and see Windward Islands without any points but youstill have to dig in there and play your best and that is what we did,” hesaid.”I was very worried about the weather hence our decision to put Windwardsinto bat first. We thought if we batted well first innings, we would taketoo much time out of the game so we stuck them in and dictated the paceafter that.”It was a bit of a crusty wicket and turned generously for the spinners ifthey put it in the right areas. Batting wise, we had a couple of hiccups butstill managed to get nearly 300 runs which was great. I had a good knockmyself and Graeme Swann (49) and Paul Franks (48) came in and did well lowerdown the order. Bowling wise, Swann and Ryan Sidebottom stood head andshoulders above the others.”We were only 80 runs in front this morning and we didn’t want to bat laston this wicket so wanted to get 150 ahead. It proved enough for the Windwardguys – it is the worse batting side we have come across, they had no plan orstrategy at all and it all fell apart.”Swann has got into his rhythm quickly. With batsmen lacking inconcentration, if you have someone who is prepared to bowl a lot of oversand put the ball in the right spot, you are going to get good results andthat is what Graeme has done. He has bowled well.””I think we are pretty much guaranteed a semi-final place. A good resultagainst Leewards would give us a home tie in Grenada though I don’t know ifthat is a good thing or not,” he said, referring to the slow pitch at theGrenada National Stadium.”But I’m not really bothered. So long as we are in the last four, I’m happy.