Crowd appeased by Lara and Adams
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reports from Edgbaston
West Indies 220-7 Warwickshire 198 West Indies win by 22 runs
Predictably enough, the West Indies touring team, as opposed to the Test side, beat Warwickshire without any great excitement in their hastily arranged 40-over match designed to appease disappointed spectators who had bought tickets for the Monday of the Third Test.
These extra games are never especially rewarding. Both sides now have many important matches ahead of them and the participants would not have wanted to take the slightest chance of injury.
The Test pitch was used but immediately after the Test had ended on Saturday it had been anaesthetised by heavy watering. In any event, with nothing hanging on the match, bowlers did not rush in as they had done before the weekend.
There was a crowd of around 3,000, which provided some atmosphere, a humid sun shone throughout and the promised thunderstorms held off.
At pounds 10 a head for the adults, the spectators helped finance the day for the West Indies, who will presumably have wanted extra payment to persuade them to play, and the Warwickshire players may have cashed in as well.
Those people who had bought tickets for the fourth day of the Test match had been promised a full refund less a small administrative charge, or the option of a ticket for the fourth day of next year's Test at Edgbaston, against India in June.
This match will also have been a help to the hospitality industry, whose packages had been sold in advance and the food ordered. Most of the boxes at the City end of the ground were in use although numbers in the individual boxes were understandably down, for this was very much the day after the Lord Mayor's Show.
While the crowd will have felt that it was better than being at the office, the players did their best. Brian Lara, who captained the West Indies, delighted the crowd with a score of exactly 450 less than he had made here for Warwickshire against Durham last year. Jimmy Adams made a pleasant 80 and a target of 221 was always going to be beyond Warwickshire.
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