JAMAICA’S BATS FALLING SHORT

So, Jamaica has once again been bounced from the Caribbean T20 competition, this time following a humiliating defeat at the hands of Trinidad and Tobago.
That the end of the line came in the semi-finals was not surprising considering that Jamaica got in even after suffering losses to the Combined Campuses and Colleges and to the Windward Islands in their last group match.
It was also not surprising that Jamaica once again fell short considering some things that we have come to know about the national T20 squad.
Chief among those things is the glaring inability of most of our batsmen to effectively play spin bowling. That, and how ineffective they are in turning over the strike but pushing the ball into gaps in the field.
While watching this year’s competition what we have seen is a team that has failed to improve. David Bernard Jnr for example, failed in the experiment to move him up to the top of the batting order. Bernard’s poor technique was exposed time and time again as he struggled to keep the scoreboard ticking when boundaries were not available.
But Bernard was not alone in his failures with the bat. Xavier Marshall has once again thrown away an opportunity to show off his talents, failing miserably during the competition. Danza Hyatt was not his usual self primarily because of a badly injured finger that not only affected his batting but his fielding as well.
It was very glaring the reluctance by the Jamaican batsmen to use their feet to the bowlers, especially the spinners who managed to stifle the Jamaican batsmen time and time again. This weakness was so obvious to the opposing teams that many of the teams successfully used spinners to open the bowling against Jamaica.
In fact, when you look at contributions from the batsmen only Marlon Samuels with scores of 80, 53, 45, 42, and 14 in the last match against Trinidad, showed any consistency during Jamaica’s run the tournament.
Lets look at Trinidad as a comparison, since they will be representing the West Indies in the Airtel Championships in South Africa later this year and will earn about US$500,000 just for participating. Trinidad are unbeaten in the competition so far and have had a relatively easy run, except for the washed out game against Somerset when they were struggling at 70 for four.
Lendl Simmons had best scores of 83, 53, 35, and 51. In the match against Jamaica, the may in which he batted disguised the hamstring injury he was carrying carting the Jamaica bowling to all parts of the field. He was backed up by Adrian Barath, who opened the batting and had scores of 26, 17, 23 and 37 and Darren Bravo who had scores of 20, 28, 70 and 25 not out. The unbeaten score was made against Jamaica. What we saw from Trinidad was consistency in laying the foundation for winning scores throughout the competition.
Jamaica’s bowlers were not as bad but again Krishmar Santokie was the best of them taking nine wickets in the tournament, showing up his more celebrated teammate Jerome Taylor, who has demonstrated that he depends largely on luck to get wickets as opposed to bowling to a plan or to the field set for him.
Nowhere was it more apparent than in the semi-finals when having no fine leg or square leg fielder in place proceeded to bowl short to the Trinidadian batsmen and was repeatedly hit for fours and sixes. It was no surprise then that he only took four wickets in the tournament. Nikita Miller had a relatively poor tournament and seemed frustrated at having to continuously defend paltry totals.
In the bigger picture what has become clear is that Jamaica’s administrators and selectors need to start selecting ‘horses for courses’ as it has never been more evident that save for a couple of players, this current crop of Jamaican batsmen have not been able to adapt to the Twenty20 version of the game and that overall their skills are very limited. It is time we start looking elsewhere for batsmen who are not only capable but who show a willingness to adapt to unfamiliar scenarios and even more importantly, willing to work to improve their game.
If not we will continue to watch them get embarrassed while playing against their Caribbean neighbours, much like we saw against Trinidad on the weekend.