Fenner's (first day): Warwickshire 383-6 dec. v Cambridge University 39-2.
Navdeep Poonia, Warwickshire's Scotland World Cup representative, scored his maiden first-class century when his innings of 111 led the visitors' onslaught of the Cambridge University students' attack yesterday.
Poonia scored a half-century on his championship debut, against Worcestershire at Edgbaston last month, before being dropped for the next match. He sent a message to the high command at Edgbaston yesterday with this innings of four hours in which he faced 188 deliveries and struck 12 fours.
Poonia opened the innings with Richard Johnson - who had impressed with the bat and gloves in his Warwickshire first-team debut in the Friends Provident Trophy match against Northamptonshire on Sunday - and the pair enjoyed a partnership of 155 runs, Johnson himself impressing on his first-class debut with 13 fours in his innings of 72 off only 86 deliveries before .
After Luke Parker won the toss he and his young side enjoyed a wicket-free opening session as Poonia and Johnson shared 151, both entering the 70s, before the students had a welcome break.
They had their first success soon after play resumed, with Johnson's dismissal, but Parker ensured that the momentum was maintained. He and Poonia would share 89, of which Parker scored 61 off 63 balls in striking nine fours and the only six of the day's entertainment.
Poonia departed soon after, the third wicket falling at 270, but Jim Troughton, on a welcome return to playing following an early-season injury, remained at the crease until Parker declared in the 86th over, about an hour after the tea internval, after a rate of run-scoring of nearly 4.5 per over.
Troughton found an able partner in Nick James, the other Warwickshire player making his first-class debut. James batted for an hour and had reached 34 with, for him, the modest return of only two boundaries, when he was caught behind off leg-break bowler Akbar Ansari - 346 for four.
Tim Groenewald was leg-before to Ansari first ball and the same player took the catch to dismiss Chris Woakes (12) when the run-feast ceased.
Both opening bowlers, Matt Friedlander and Mohammad Amin, were scored off freely, their combined total of 22 overs costing 127. . However, medium-pacer Will O'Driscoll, off-break bowler Tim Hemingway and Ansari each took two wickets on a trying day. At tea Warwickshire had scored 286 for five off 70 overs, with Troughton having scored 23 and James six.
The students, in 13 overs to the close, lost Frederick Owen, caught by Troughton off Lee Daggett, at 13 before Ansari was run out at 19. Daggett shared the new ball with Naqaash Tahir, who is another Warwickshire player recovering from injury.
Warwickshire's imposing total means that the remaining two days may represent an indeal opportunity for Tahir, Calum MacLeod, Woakes and Stuart Hole to bowl long spells, or a series of shorter ones, now that the warmer weather has arrived and, in such conditions, the physical strength and fitness of pace bowlers can be tested.
