DERBY, England, CMC - Fidel Edwards completed his first 10-wicket match haul in first-class cricket in bowling West Indies to a crushing 315-run victory over Derbyshire 20 minutes before tea on the final day of their three-day match, yesterday.
Repeating the fearsome pace and hostility of the first innings, but to even more devastating effect, the 22-year-old fast bowler ripped through the home team’s batting line-up in claiming five for 22, lifting his match analysis to ten for 83, as the hosts, set the unlikely target of 404, were routed for just 88.
In rediscovering the rhythm that is so important to his success as a bowler, Edwards has all but confirmed a recall for next week’s third Test against England at Old Trafford.
The squad left for Manchester immediately after the match with their spirits lifted, particularly after a horrendous batting display on the first day, and with the additional encouragement of Dave Mohammed offering them another spinning option on a pitch that is forecast to favour the slow bowlers once again.
After claiming three scalps in the first innings, Mohammed troubled all the batsmen he bowled to the second time around, picking up two wickets and having three catches dropped off his bowling.
Derbyshire would have only been thinking of survival when Ramnaresh Sarwan declared the West Indies second innings at 368 for six after just over an hour of the morning session.
In that time, Carlton Baugh, Jr., and Ridley Jacobs smashed another 75 runs, Baugh finishing unbeaten on 150 off 182 balls with 13 fours and four sixes, while Jacobs contributed an unbeaten 59 to an unbroken seventh-wicket partnership of 151.
That effort eclipsed the previous West Indian seventh-wicket record against Derbyshire, established by the legendary George Headley and Ben Sealy as long ago as 1933 on the Caribbean side’s second Test tour of England.
While under no illusions about the enormity of the challenge facing them against England - who are pushing for a clean sweep of the four-Test series - and the comparative lack of fight from Derbyshire on the last day, the visitors can take heart from the fact that Edwards, Mohammed and Baugh have put pressure on the incumbents for a place in the final 11 for the third Test.
The home side did not help their cause with two senseless run-outs among their first four dismissals with just 15 runs on the scoreboard. Indeed, their overall effort prompted coach Dave Houghton, the former Zimbabwean captain, to condemn Derbyshire’s performance on the last two days of the match as “pathetic”.
As he noted, it was almost as if the sides had reversed roles after the opening day when the West Indies certainly did not seem to have their hearts, minds or any other parts of their anatomies in the game.
With survival to lunch as their only realistic objective, Steve Stubbings was run-out by Dwayne Bravo’s direct hit at the bowler’s end from mid-wicket, after the left-hander was sent back by Andrew Gait, his opening partner, who was then promptly trapped lbw to Edwards, as the fast bowler wasted little time in getting up to full steam.
Hassan Adnan was also beaten by sheer pace on the back foot in going lbw and to add to the confusion in the Derbyshire ranks, Steve Selwood ran himself out without scoring.
The only questions being asked at the lunch interval was how long it would take for West Indies to complete the demolition job, and when Edwards had James Bryant caught at the wicket to the very first ball on the resumption, making the score 16 for five, it seemed only a matter of minutes before the final rites would have been performed.
But Derbyshire captain Luke Sutton showed that there was some fight and character left in the opposition, being saved from a potentially lethal injury when a skidding Edwards bouncer crashed into the side of his helmet and hanging on to the very end when he was last out, trapped lbw for a top score of 27 by the same bowler.
Before this, Nathan Dumelow hung around with him while 26 runs were added for the sixth wicket, and with Sarwan keen not to exhaust Edwards in the fierce afternoon heat, Dwayne Smith snapped up the wicket of the off-spinner when he was deceived by the swing of the medium-pacer and was palpably lbw.
Sutton and Neil Gunter were both missed to difficult catches at slip off Mohammed, but the spinner finally got his reward when Gunter charged the bowler and was smartly stumped by Baugh.
Nick Walker was in no mood to hang around, despite his captain’s stubbornness, hoisting Mohammed to deep mid-off, where Bravo dropped the catch. Two balls later however, he attempted a similar shot and Sylvester Joseph made no mistake at cover.
By then, Edwards was already back for a second spell, and with Paul Havell having no pretensions to batsmanship, was almost grateful to see his off-stump flying out of the ground in the wake of another full-length thunderbolt.
Edwards put the seal on an impressive personal performance with the wicket of Sutton, but like everyone else in the West Indies squad, he knows the gap between this Derbyshire team and the England side that has whipped them so far in the series is as wide as the quality of weather they endured at the start of the tour and the conditions they have enjoyed over the past three weeks.
WEST INDIES 1st innings 223
(D.R. Smith 55; N. Dumelow 5-51)
DERBYSHIRE 1st innings 188
(S. Stubbings 56; F. Edwards 5-61)
WEST INDIES 2nd innings (overnight 293 for six)
DS Smith run-out 31
S. Joseph b Paget 77
D. Bravo b Paget 5
D.R. Smith c Walker b Paget 0
C. Baugh not out 150
O. Banks c H Adnan b Dumelow 12
R. Sarwan c H Adnan b Dumelow 15
R. Jacobs not out 59
Extras: (b-5, lb-6, w-2, nb-6) 19
Total: (6 wkts decl’d) 368
Fall of wickets: 1-41, 2-80, 3-82, 4-178, 5-199, 6-217.