Mark Alleyne battled bravely in a vain attempt to reach the Leeward Island’sfirst innings total but he ran out of partners and England A fell short by71 runs in their final round Busta Cup match in Anguilla

Kate Laven18-Feb-2001Mark Alleyne battled bravely in a vain attempt to reach the Leeward Island’sfirst innings total but he ran out of partners and England A fell short by71 runs in their final round Busta Cup match in Anguilla.For only the second time in seven matches, England A were behind at the halfway stage and with one day remaining, a draw is the most likely outcomeafter Leewards extended their lead to 178 tonight, for the loss of twowickets.Alleyne made a rapid but stylish century, an achievement he has beenanticipating ever since he took a week out of the tour in Grenada to work ona technical flaw. After missing the game against Guyana, he returned inBarbados to make 40 and has improved with each innings, his composuregrowing in parallel with his tour aggregate which now stands at 291 runs.He arrived at the crease in Anguilla shortly before the close on day twowith the score on 103 for three and spent over two sessions today buildingup his total. It grew relatively quickly, his first 50 coming off 94 ballswith six boundaries and his second off just 53 balls, when he add anothersix fours to his tally.Not only was it an outstanding innings in the contribution it made toEngland A total but it was an attractive one, providing a small crowd with ashow of steady but positive batting, his driving elegant and his pullingpowerful and effective.But while he accumulated at one end, his partners capitulated at the otherand he stood and watched while six batsmen, who between them added 102 runsto the total, fell by the wayside.Eventually Alleyne ran out of steam and when he was caught at mid on off thebowling of Carl Tuckett, England A’s first innings was complete havingreached 331 in reply to Leeward’s formidable total of 402.”It was nice to get in on a deck and I played well, hitting the ballnicely,” said Alleyne.”It was a shame we couldn’t go on and get past their score but neverthelessthe game is finely poised.”The main factor has been sorting out the technical problem that was gettingme out early on in the tour and since then I have gained confidence thelonger I have been at the crease. There were parts of the innings I waspleased about but in all it was one of my better innings, up there with mybetter hundreds.”We were very disappointed with our post-lunch session. The wicket was verygood but it doesn’t matter how good a wicket is, you still have to applyyourself and we failed to do that in the middle and lower order.”Its not a huge setback not getting those first innings points. We havestill qualified for the last four which is key but it was disappointingbecause this match posed some nice challenges. Chasing 400 is never an easything to do and if we had achieved that it would have filled us with a lotof confidence.”Despite that, Alleyne added, England A remained confident that victory inthis match was still in their grasp, after knocking over two Leeward wicketsin the closing session.”It is still a good wicket and batting last, I still fancy our chances ofwinning the game. They need to win the match so their batters will need tocome at us tomorrow to try and score at a quicker rate. They are 170 infront which is not nearly enough so I would imagine they will need a goodsession to put something interesting on the board.”Ideally we would have liked a couple more wickets tonight but we missed acouple of half chances, dropping two catches so they could have been fourwickets down tonight but once again we have o make sure we stay on top ofyour game.”Both teams want to win the match so I see no reason why there shouldn’t bean exciting finish tomorrow.”