Bajans blast the pitches

Kingston - The hierarchy of the Barbados cricket team has knocked the quality of pitches in the Jamaica leg of the Red Stripe Bowl. While admitting that their inept batting was the main reason for the semifinal defeat against the Leewards Islands on Friday, captain Sherwin Campbell, coach William Bourne and manager Tony Howard were not impressed with the standard of surfaces throughout the competition.

Bourne suggested there should be some degree of pitch supervision for matches at this level.

"The authorities have to look a little bit harder at the kind of pitches that are prepared and maybe someone has to be there overseeing the groundsmen," he said.

"The pitches need to be hard and true and the batsmen must have a fair chance. People want to come to one-day cricket and see batsmen play strokes. We were not getting that in any of these games."

In the ten preliminary matches contested in Jamaica, there were only three totals of more than 200, eight all-out team totals of less than 150 (see accompanying table) and no individual centuries.

"There was an inconsistency in the pitches," was Howard's assessment. "The pitches we have had here in Jamaica have not been up to one-day standard. That is a given. You certainly ought not to be having teams 60 for five in a one-day game."

That was the case in Friday's semifinal in which the Leewards struggled for 85 for six after they were sent in by Barbados.

In matches against Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados performed well while bowling second, but skipper Campbell said the decision to field first against the Leewards was influenced by the look of the Sabina Park track.

"The wicket had a lot of moisture in it. If we could have exploited that moisture and pushed them back early, we could have gotten them out for a low score," the Barbados captain said.

"Most of the wickets we played on could have been a lot better. I have played many games here for the West Indies and the pitches were really good."

Campbell, Howard and Bourne made no excuses for Barbados' defeat to the Leewards, who had posted a modest 169.

Howard described Barbados' overall performance as "up and down", but he gave a reason for it.

"The long break between the preliminaries and the semifinals contributes to `going off-peak', " he said. "We are going to submit to the boards that they need to have a look at this arrangement."

He was referring to Barbados having to play their semifinal four days after their last preliminary match.