Cricket: Smith frustrates Essex

Warwickshire 361; Essex 43-2

WHEN Warwickshire's current strengths are assessed for posterity, the bottom line will probably be that the team are a players' co-operative, as Essex rediscovered yesterday.

No one has failed to contribute. It might be the opening batsman, Roger Twose, taking a career best 6 for 28, or Graeme Welch making a down-the-order half century, as was the case at Guildford last week.

Sometimes lightning, and not necessarily Brian Lara, strikes twice - such as Neil Smith, who frustrated Essex yesterday with a second successive 50, batting as low as No 8. Smith shared an eighth- wicket partnership of 74 in 24 overs with Dougie Brown, as Warwickshire confirmed their impression of being a team in a hurry.

They maintained a tempo of about four an over despite the pitch showing symptoms of variable bounce. The occasional lifter, like the one which caught the shoulder of Twose's bat and dollied to slip, contrasted with the odd scuttler.

Even Lara found that the surface presented a challenge of timing, mishooking Ronnie Irani and skying one of five catches held by Nick Knight, who joined seven other Essex fielders in holding the record for an innings.

Knight also ran out Brown with a direct hit from mid- wicket during an eventful day in which Andy Moles saw a deflection from his pads, off the bowling of Mike Kasprowicz, roll firmly on to the middle stump but fail to dislodge a bail.

Moles duly rushed from 23 to 57 in a 69-ball innings, which almost matched the speed of Lara's entertaining 70 from 81 balls, which included 11 fours and a six.

Essex plugged away, with John Stephenson swinging the ball and Irani deserving his three wickets, as the champion team of the 1980s battled to lower the resistance of the county fancying the title of the super side of the 1990s.

Trevor Penney, Welch and Brown threw tasty bits and pieces into the cauldron, and Welch chipped in with the wickets of Stephenson and the nightwatchman, Peter Such, in his first two overs.