The North West Warriors took nine Leinster Lightning wickets for 190 before tea on the first day of the Newstalk Inter-provincial championship game at Malahide but, remarkably, the league leaders were still batting at the close,

Max Sorensen and Albert van der Merwe have so far put on 109 for the last wicket and resume this morning hoping to pile on the agony. Both have already posted personal best representative scores with Sorensen just 32 runs short of a century and van der Merwe one shy of his 50.

It was a case of deja vu for the Warriors' bowlers who had seen it all before, just six weeks ago at Bready in the first match between the teams with Sorensen the common link. That day the Ireland international made 42 in an last wicket stand of 93 with Fintan McAllister - who opened yesterday, proving that this Lightning team can genuinely reverse their batting order and no-one would notice the difference.

That day, it gave the Leinster side a vital first innings lead of 30 and although there are no demons in this Malahide pitch, the Warriors batting line-up, although strong on paper, has yet to post 200 in their four previous Championship innings this season.

Craig Young was the most successful Warriors bowler, yet the most inconsistent and, comfortably, the most expensive. He did get the big wicket of in-form Andrew Poynter for 10, that's 185 less than he scored in Sunday's Irish Cup game against St Johnston and 110 fewer than for Clontarf the day before, but he was helped by loose shots from Bill Coghlan and Simmi Singh.

The unluckiest bowler was debutant and Young's new ball partner Jarred Barnes who did everything but take a wicket. Nine of his first 14 overs were maidens – there were 32 in the day - while the Warriors' other overseas player, Ernest Kemm, was impressive throughout his 23 overs.

Cormac McLouglin replaced the injured John Anderson in the home side's starting line-up and played a composed innings of 57 balls before trying to hit to leg once too often while Coghlan, who scored 61 off 113 balls had a wagon wheel dominated by shots to thirdman, including half of his 12 boundaries.

But the day was all about the No 10 and No 11 batsmen. Sorensen has already faced 136 balls – a strike rate of exactly 50 – and hit five fours while van der Merwe finished the day by hitting his 100th ball for his sixth boundary. Just how much longer can they bat today?