By Paul-Andre Walker, Staff ReporterA MAGNIFICENT first session from England skipper Michael Vaughan saw the tourists scoring heavily to end the first day of their three day match against Jamaica at Sabina Park in good shape.
Vaughan, with his first hundred of the English tour (105), Nasser Hussain (66) and wicketkeeper Chris Read (61) were the main destroyers for the English, with Graham Thorpe chipping in with a useful 34 to end their first innings at 320.
Jamaica seemed well on their way to bowling down the tourists for a smaller total when they had them stumbling at 42 for two, Marcus Trescothick being the first to go, bowled by Evon McInnis for seven with the score on 37.
Butcher was next to go, hardly troubling the scorers before he was caught by Bevon Brown off the bowling of Dwight Mais.
The Jamaicans then went through patches where things spilt out of control, especially with Vaughan and Hussain enjoying a 118-run partnership.
That partnership was broken when Brown had Hussain trapped leg before with the score on 160.
At 205 the Englishmen lost Thorpe caught Donovan Pagon bowled Phillip Keating, who was bowling well under the conditions. Vaughan finally went after he was bowled by Lawson who was returning to competitive play after a nine-month absence to correct his bowling action.
The second session saw the Jamaicans finally beginning to compete. The improvement in the bowling and fielding saw the tourists slump to 257 for six with Rikki Clarke caught by skipper Brenton Parchment off Keating for five to leave Read unbeaten on 22.
After tea Read came out full of purpose and played some magnificent shots, with an especially good straight six off the bowling of Brown.
Brown would eventually get his revenge when Matthew Sinclair stumped Read who had ventured down the track in trying to play a sweep shot that had, until that point, been quite profitable.
The tourists' tail did soak up some valuable time but didn't add much to the total with England losing their last four wickets for 28 runs, of which medium pacer Matthew Hoggard scored 12. Jamaica, like the tourists, had a horrific start when they lost Parchment for nought with the score on one. He was caught behind off the bowling of Hoggard.
Hoggard went on to take the only other wicket in the 11 overs bowled by the tourists when he had Pagon caught and bowled for six to leave the home team on the backfoot at 25 for two. Hoggard ended the day with figures of two wickets for five runs off four overs. Hyatt on nought and Shawn Finlay on 16 are the not out batsmen.
The bright spark of the day for the home team must be the return of Lawson, who, while not bowling at top pace yet, managed to get in 11 overs and was rewarded with figures of one for 45. The best bowler for Jamaica was Brown, who had figures of three for 74 off 20.1 overs. There were a wicket each for Evon McInnis, Lorenzo Ingram and Mais, while Keating bagged two for 32 off 14 overs.
Lawson was pleased to be back playing competitive cricket but realises that he has a long way to go.
"My back is okay, I can't say when I'll be back at top pace, but I'm taking it game by game and I'm happy with myself because I bowled reasonably well," he said.
While national coach, Robert Haynes was proud of the performance of the Jamaicans:
"Our bowlers bowled badly in the first session but we came back into the game and bowled fairly well so I was pleased overall that we went out there and played some better cricket," he said.
