There is?a bitter-sweet feeling in the mouth of Barbados’ chairman of selectors George Linton.
While expressing disappointment with the national team’s exit from the Caribbean T20 cricket competition at the semi-final stage at the hands of arch-rivals Trinidad and Tobago, Linton told NATIONSPORT yesterday that all was not lost.
The Trinidadians routed Barbados for a paltry 90 on Saturday night before a near-capacity Kensington Oval and responded with 93 for five after enduring a scare at 45 for five, to secure a five-wicket victory.
“It was a bit disappointing. Obviously, the better players didn’t step up to the plate on the night and that happens in these shorter forms of the game. We needed big performances, especially from the seasoned players and that didn’t happened,” Linton acknowledged.
“Full credit must also go to the Trinidad team. They are an experienced team with some international players with plenty of experience at the Twenty20 level and their better players tend to step up on the night,” Linton said.
“We allowed [Sunil] Narine and [Samuel] Badree again to come and settle down. I think our established players need to show a bit more fight and take the advantage away from the Trinidadians. As long as the seasoned players struggle, it will filter down through the team and we stumbled at the final hurdle but these things happen,” he noted.
“Obviously, our batting depended heavily on Dwayne [Smith] and he gave us some good starts in the early matches but he failed on the night and we struggled somewhat,” added Linton.
Smith scored a team-high 165 runs at an average of 33 with a strike rate of 136.36.
However, Linton said he still felt the team performed well in the preliminaries when they won all four group matches in convincing fashion against the Netherlands, Jamaica, Sussex and the Combined Campuses And Colleges.
“I thought the team performed well throughout the tournament, especially in the bowling and fielding departments. Our fielding was of a high standard and the bowling had some quality. When we left Antigua and came here, we met some pitches with quite a bit of bounce and Fidel [Edwards] and Tino [Best] utilized that bounce quite well,” he said.
“Probably, our biggest problem was in the batting department. Somehow, it is always difficult to get the right combination in the batting.
“We can always say after the fact, we should’ve sent the batting order this way or that way. I feel personally that at the Twenty20 level, a few players should always be padded and looking to make changes as it arises,” he opined.
Looking ahead, Linton said with the domestic season ending much earlier with a reduction in the Division One teams to ten, he reckons they should be more Twenty20 matches so that the selectors could “have a good look at a few more players”.
“Don’t matter what happens in the local competition, it is when the pressure is on at the regional and international level, that you will see the players who can step up to the plate,” Linton said.
Linton singled out 20-year-old wicketkeeper/batsman Shane Dowrich, who scored 60 runs with a highest score of 23 not out at an average of 20 and strike rate of 88.23 as one of the players he was impressed with.
“Talking about players stepping up, one of the players, not only as chairman of selectors that I’m pleased with, was the way young Dowrich handled the pressure. Given an opportunity at such a young age in a short format of the game, he has really held his own,” Linton noted.
