THE BOTTOM FALLS OUT ON JAMAICA’S CRICKETERS

We all saw it coming. We all – whether we were willing to accept it or not – knew that Jamaica’s underwhelming performances with the bat this season were eventually going to come back to haunt and eventually bite them in their collective posteriors as they tried to defend their five consecutive four-day titles in the regional competition.

It was the second time this season that Trinidad was ending Jamaica’s unbeaten streak. They did it earlier this season in the Super50 competition in which Jamaica was also the defending champion and it happened again this weekend before empty stands  at Sabina Park.

This season Jamaica’s run of poor form with the bat has been woeful: 246 and 102 against Trinidad in the semi-finals,208 and 257 for 8 against a pathetic Guyana; 147 and 259 against Trinidad;209 and 225 against the Leewards; and 207 and 97 against the Windward Islands. Most of these scores read like T20 scores not four-day scores. It is embarrassing that a national team was unable to get a total of over 300 runs in any single inning this season while crumbling for three scores of under 150.

During the course of the season I had conversations on my radio show – Sportsnation Live on Nationwide 90fm – with team manager Danny Senior, head coach Junior Bennett, Captain Tamar Lambert and chief wicket-taker Nikita Miller and none of them really was able to put a finger on why the batsmen were consistently failing throughout the season. A cursory glance at the scores made by the batsmen in the top order suggests that when the official averages are released many of the bowlers will be in the top tier of the Jamaican averages while many of the batsmen will be at the bottom. The only batsman who can hold his head up with any real distinction would be Carlton Baugh Jr, who in between indifferent performances registered scores including 99,  88*, 84,  and 81.

In the semi’s against Trinidad, Jamaica would have probably lost on first innings had it not been a last-wicket partnership of 102 between Baugh and Sheldon Cotterel. They would have been hoping for a repeat in the second inning but lightning rarely strikes in the same place twice and is why the 15-game win streak is over and why Trinidad and Barbados will contest this year’s final.

Time and time again this season, Jamaica found themselves in positions where the bowlers had to be bailing them out with both bat and ball. Nikita Miller, who took more than 30 wickets again this season, on several occasions had to help prop up the lower order batting with scores of 21, 26 and 42. The scores may not sound like much but when you compare them with what the Jamaican top order was producing his scores look like a centuries’s. Odean Brown, too, against the Leewards; his 30 not out and 59 helped Jamaica to respectable scores of 209 and 225 when at points, the team was struggling at 140 for 7 and  116 for 9 respectively. The bowlers then had to turn around and defend the paltry totals that they had to help prop up. The way I see it the batsmen, most of them, should give the bowlers their match fees.

So in the semi-finals against Trinidad that the batsmen once against left it for the bowlers to do was just one time too many. Having scratched and clawed their way to a decent total of 246 when once again Jamaica struggled to 143 for 9 before Cotterel and Baugh came to the rescue, Jamaica bowled Trinidad out for 170. With a lead of 76 on first innings Jamaica would have been hoping to build on that lead and set the Trinidadians an imposing total. With the poor batting we have seen so far this season, anything over 250 would have been impregnable but you don’t get to that kind of lead when your top order could only muster 16 runs by the time the lost four wickets. This time the bowlers could not repeat their batting feats and Jamaica collapsed to 102 all out. The top five batsman contributed a total of 19 runs on what was a flat batting track.

On those performances, no team deserves to advance to a final anywhere. The bottom had finally fallen out and now the time may have come for the administrators to look at getting a new bucket. Perhaps it was complacency that can set in after you win five straight titles, perhaps it is a lack of talent or a lack of confidence theories that have been bandied about all season. Whatever the reason however, the JCA needs to take a long, hard look at the misfortunes of the batsmen this season and look to rebuild. The run of wins was good while it lasted but it was obvious that that success was built on shaky ground, that is the over-dependence on the bowling attack to get the team out of trouble. But bowlers are paid to bowl, not to bat and that is what cost Jamaica this time around.