West Indies quickly shrugged off their indifferent start to their England tour to adapt to the changing conditions and dominate their opening warm-up match against Leicestershire.

Only 24 hours earlier, coach John Dyson had delivered a scathing verdict on the pitch at Grace Road for the opening day of their tour match, with Leicestershire being dismissed for 182 before West Indies stumbled to 80 for four in reply.

Former Australia batsman Dyson had claimed it was not "a good cricket wicket", while he also criticised his side's opening-day display as they began their build-up to the opening Test at Lord's on May 6.

But a change in conditions and a determined display from their middle order made a mockery of his comments, with West Indies ending the 100 overs of their first innings - the maximum allowed for the three-day warm-up matches - 138 runs ahead on 320 for six.

Just to compound Leicestershire's frustration on a day when only two wickets fell in 73.3 overs of West Indies' reply, they were reduced to 51 for one at the close.

Leicestershire had decided to rest some of their more established players - captain Paul Nixon, Hylton Ackerman and Claude Henderson all sat out - and struggled to break through a resilient middle order, which England found equally frustrating during their recent Test series defeat in the Caribbean.

One of their early tormentors on that tour was 24-year-old batsman Lendl Simmons, who scored a double hundred for West Indies A against England in St Kitts and made his Test debut in the final match of the series in Trinidad.

That display earned him a place in West Indies' tour squad and he chose Grace Road, where his uncle Phil Simmons was an influential all-rounder between 1994 to 1998, to enhance his claims for selection in the opening Test.

Resuming overnight on 21, Simmons quickly combined with Brendan Nash in a 154-run partnership that was only broken when they both retired hurt suffering from minor niggles within 10 overs of each other having batted together for 50 overs.

Simmons was given one reprieve on 79 when he slashed at left-arm seamer Harry Gurney and was dropped at slip by Boeta Dippenaar, but otherwise seemed to have adjusted to the conditions impressively.

He retired hurt only three balls after reaching his century with a drive through extra cover for his 11th four, but had recovered sufficiently from cramp in his right arm to keep wicket when Leicestershire began their reply.

Nash, a more cautious batsman by his nature, was equally impressive and, although he was watchful at first, he also hit 11 fours before retiring after being hit on his inner thigh for a determined 78 after twice surviving scares for his running between the wickets.

Their displays will have particularly pleased Dyson, whose squad have only two more warm-up matches before the start of the Test series and are still without Chris Gayle and Fidel Edwards, both on Indian Premier League duty, while Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Jerome Taylor are not expected to arrive until the weekend after recovering from niggles.

The pair's premature retirements allowed Dinesh Ramdin, leading the side in the absence of Gayle, to forge a 54-run stand with Sulieman Benn before being caught in the deep to hand Dippenaar his maiden first-class wicket in a career spanning nearly 14 years.

Emerging seamer Andrew Richardson ensured West Indies finished the day in buoyant spirits by removing opener Tom New in his second over when he fended a short ball to gully, but Matthew Boyce and Josh Cobb survived some difficult moments to provide the tourists with a little frustration of their own.