CRICKET/Third Test:West Indies enjoyed by far their best day in the field so far in the series yesterday. They maintained a discipline that tottered only when Alastair Cook and Michael Vaughan were romping along at around four runs an over and, in the final session, when Ian Bell and Matthew Prior rescued England from a potentially perilous situation with a stand of 98 for the sixth wicket.
Daren Ganga acquitted himself admirably in his first match in official charge and his bowlers generally responded. Corey Collymore, steady if innocuous-looking at times, still managed the wickets of Vaughan, for 41, and Kevin Pietersen.
Jerome Taylor wrested a couple of lbw decisions from Aleem Dar to send back Andrew Strauss and Paul Collingwood, leaving each player entitled to think they might have survived a less unforgiving umpire, and the tall Darren Sammy claimed a maiden Test wicket for him and St Lucia when Cook, on 60 and batting with supreme confidence and skill, slapped a low catch to backward point.
Bell, who needed 15 balls to open his account before moving on to 77, and Prior steadied things, before Prior, on 40 and getting carried away, was undone by a little extra bounce and skied a pull to deep square leg.
Liam Plunkett was then no match for Fidel Edwards and the second new ball.
England may have their noses in front but only because of the prospect of what tall pace bowlers might achieve.
Talk of ruthlessness, a popular topic after West Indies' dismal showing at Headingley, appears to have been slightly premature, for until Bell and Prior resurrected things, it must have been the visitors who envisaged taking the honours on a pitch that offered some ferocious bounce when the ball was new but which afterwards played exceptionally.
Margins of error are slight for bowlers, so to reduce England to 166 for five with the wicket of Collingwood shortly before tea was an endorsement of West India diligence, and a fair reflection on the enthusiasm Ganga had managed to instil in his fielders.
There was a time when a groundsman preparing a pitch such as Peter Marron did here - in effect it's a concrete strip covered in grass - to present to a West Indies side would have been banished for life. Nineteen years ago, in fact, England tried the opposite tack, instructing Marron to make a turner to spike the guns of Malcolm Marshall, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose. It made no odds; Marshall cut his pace, swung the ball, took the pitch out of the equation and with seven for 22 bowled England out for 93. An innings and 156 runs. Do not, said Viv Richards afterwards, try that again.
This West Indies side carries little threat by comparison and England have gone into the game confident Steve Harmison, in particular,will prove too much of a handful today.
During the two hours they were together, neither Cook nor Vaughan was unduly troubled. Cook, barely six months on from the Ashes series, looks a considerably more mature player already, his technique tighter outside off stump and his driving and pulling emphatic. If Vaughan's reception from the crowd was restrained - a contrast, say, to that accorded Pietersen - then he too drove nicely into the offside and clipped tidily through midwicket.
But the afternoon session pulled West Indies back into the game, with four wickets falling for 49 runs in 21 overs. It began with Vaughan, who would have been eyeing a second successive century. His willingness to look for the drive on the up, easier on a pitch with pace and bounce, proved his undoing as Collymore sneaked one back between bat and pad.
Ganga, it was felt, missed a trick in not firing up Edwards to try and rattle Pietersen's cage. No matter, though, for after one cover drive, he tried to pull Collymore and did so only as far as Bravo planted at deep square leg. When Cook followed three overs later and Collingwood with tea in sight, England were in trouble.
Bell played as competently as anyone. If he was reserved at the start, once in his stride he drove crisply, was allowed to whack away outside off stump as the bowlers fired away to a loaded field, and a couple of times rocked back and pulled with ferocity.
If he quietened down as the day drew to a close, he still managed 10 fours in his first 50 runs. He needs support, though, from the tail today.
Scoreboard
England won toss
England first innings
A Strauss lbw b Taylor 6
A Cook c Bravo b Sammy 60
M Vaughan b Collymore 41
K Pietersen c Bravo b Collymore 9
P Collingwood lbw b Taylor 10
R Bell not out 77
M Prior c Morton b Bravo 40
L Plunkett b Edwards 13
S Harmison not out 2
Extras(b10 lb7 w5 nb16) 38
-------------
Total(7 wkts, 86 overs) ... 296
Fall of wickets:1-13, 2-117, 3-132, 4-132, 5-166, 6-264, 7-285.
To bat:R Sidebottom, M Panesar.
Bowling:Taylor 15-1-52-2; Edwards 15-2-75-1; Collymore 20-5-44-2; Bravo 19-4-76-1; Sammy 17-7-32-1.
