Bopara joins elite with third straight ton

CRICKET TEST MATCH: WHEN IT comes to batting for England, Ravi Bopara is a young man of extremes. Two winters ago, in Sri Lanka, he finished an instructive but chastening tour with three successive Test ducks.

Since then, a further three successive innings have brought him 104, in Bridgetown in March, 143 at Lord’s last week, and, at Chester-le-Street yesterday, 108 before he was bowled off-stump by a nip-backer from Lionel Baker with new ball in hand and the close in sight.

There is no grey area there, no middle ground nor ambiguity. It would be a reasonable assumption that he will not be voting Lib Dem in the local elections. In scoring hundreds in three successive innings, he joins, among Englishmen, the elite company of Herbert Sutcliffe, Denis Compton, Geoff Boycott and another Essex man, Graham Gooch.

Yesterday was one for the Essex boys together though, for there was a ninth Test hundred for Alastair Cook, another young player who had gone through a lengthy period barren of centuries before he too came out of the wilderness on the Bridgetown belter.

He made an unbeaten 126 yesterday, a utilitarian innings, and hardly one to set the blood racing – which might have been helpful to the few hardy souls huddled in the stands and protected by their anoraks and woolly hats– but chanceless for all that.

Cook does practical rather than memorable: a few neat drives, one sumptuously from the second new ball, some cutting and carving, plenty of nudges off his legs, and twice rustic mows to the leg-side boundary, neither of them entirely where intended and the second of which took him to his hundred.

Cook will need no reminding that it is not how but how many: the number of hundreds he has made at the age he has collected them, 24 (the same as Bopara), is the rarity rather than the Test norm.

He batted throughout the day, hitting 14 fours, his second-wicket stand with Bopara was worth 213 and had taken the score to 282 for two after Cook and Andrew Strauss had made 69 for the first wicket.

England might have been expected to kick on from such a strong position, but inevitably, so it seemed, it was Jimmy Anderson rather than Kevin Pietersen who emerged to try to see out the day.

Bopara batted for an hour-and-a-half less than Cook. The dismissal of Strauss to the thinnest of gloved catches down the leg-side to the keeper as he attempted to sweep Chris Gayle’s off-spin was a nice piece of mischief from the cricketing gods who might have wished to promote more antipathy between the two captains than actually exists.

“Good morning, Christopher,” was Strauss’s genially exaggerated gambit at the toss. No smile from Gayle, but a sparkle.

Guardian Service

Castle Avenue washout

THERE WAS further frustration for players and supporters at Castle Avenue in Clontarf yesterday as Ireland's Friends Provident Trophy game against Leicestershire was abandoned without a ball being bowled, writes Emmet Riordan.

Following Sunday’s cancelled game against Hampshire at Eglinton, the umpires were left with no choice as they made their decision at 3.45pm. They had considered a 10-overs per side match, but even though the rain had abated the outfield remained drenched and unfit for play.

Despite a poor forecast, Ireland coach Phil Simmons will hope some play is possible tomorrow against Nottinghamshire at the same venue as he plans for next month’s Twenty20 World Cup.

Meanwhile, Cricket Ireland are negotiating with the England and Wales Cricket Board as they seek a replacement for the South African women’s who pulled out of the coming RSA Twenty20 Cup and Challenge Series in Leinster citing “both financial and logistical reasons”.

Ireland will play One-Days against Pakistan on May 25th and 26th. The series begins May 28th.

Scoreboard

SECOND TEST – England v West Indies

At Riverside, Chester-le-Street

England won toss

England – First Innings

A Strauss c Ramdin b Gayle 26

A Cook not out 126

R Bopara b Baker 108

J Anderson not out 4

Extras (b9 lb3 w6 nb20) 38

–––––

Total 2 wkts (90 overs) 302

Fall of wickets:1-69, 2-282.

To bat: K Pietersen, P Collingwood, M Prior, T Bresnan, S Broad, G Swann, G Onions.

Bowling: Taylor 14-1-42-0 Edwards 14-0-58-0 Baker 19-3-60-1 Gayle 12-2-28-1 Benn 22-6-78-0 Simmons 9-0-24-0.