Jani dazzles on List A debut

First-team coach Ian Westwood has hailed the dazzling 50-over debut of Vansh Jani – but admits that Warwickshire need to be “a lot better” after their Metro Bank One-Day Cup defeat to Yorkshire at Scarborough.

The Bears opened their campaign with a five-wicket reverse at North Marine Road. An early collapse to 38 for seven sowed the seeds of a defeat from which they will seek to bounce back against Northamptonshire at Rugby School on Sunday.

The ray of light, however, was provided by 20-year-old former Whitgift School student and South Asian Cricket Academy product Jani. Having reached the crease at 24 for five in bowler-friendly conditions, he unfurled a superb 82 (92 balls, six fours, five sixes) to lift the total to 137 and at least give the bowlers something to work with.

His innings followed a compact 41 compiled under pressure on his Championship debut against Essex at Chelmsford last week.

“Vansh was brilliant,” said Westwood. “One of the beauties of this competition is that you get to find out about people. We have quite a lot of inexperience in the side mixed in with a few older players, and we were delighted with the way he played. To get 80-odd and get us up to some sort of total shows the quality he’s got and how excited we are about him.

“He looked at home in the Championship last week with his 41, but he’s churned out runs all season. One of the reasons we signed him was that he’s been prolific in the second team every time he’s got a chance. Then it’s a question of whether he has got the confidence to take that into the first team…so far, he’s shown that he has.”

Jani’s debut aside, it was a disappointing start to the competition for the Bears at Scarborough. They need to bounce back in the trio of home games they face next against Northamptonshire (on Sunday), Kent (Wednesday 13th) and Middlesex (Friday 15th).

“The pitch at Scarborough wasn’t easy, particularly with the hard new ball, but we were pretty slow to adapt to what was in front of us,” said Westwood. “It wasn’t an easy pitch to bat on, but it was always going to be difficult defending such a small total. We really needed to have them 50 for five and create pressure, but I thought we stuck at it pretty well with the ball and gave ourselves a bit of sniff.

“We’re not going to panic after the first game. It was not an ideal start, and we’re going to have to play a lot better, that’s for sure, but we have a few days to rest up and get some good training done, and we’ll aim for a better performance on Sunday.”