J'ca Skipper: 'Trinis Talk Too Much'

Tue, Mar 19, '02

"The Trinidadians had a little bit too much to say over the four days they have been here. I wanted to finish it early so they can rest their mouth, because they have been talking a whole lot."

Jamaica captain Robert Samuels' biting post-match words were backed up emphatically by his work with the bat yesterday afternoon at Sabina Park.

His sixth boundary of the innings, coming off a Daren Ganga full toss which he blasted to the long-off boundary, ended a contest that the defending champions of the Busta International Shield had come from behind to win in a canter.

Trinidad and Tobago had lost twice to Jamaica in two weeks by the same margin?seven wickets. Captain Richard Smith?s stated mission of getting ?revenge? had failed. And Samuels was not about to let him forget it.

?Richard Smith the captain is all talk, no play. I wanted to show him you have to play and then talk,? said Samuels, who finished the match unbeaten on 44, struck off just 38 balls.

There was no question that Jamaica had proved their point. Chasing 205 to reach the final again, they resumed comfortably placed on 103 for one overnight and lost just the wickets of Leon Garrick (49) and Wavell Hinds (32) in reaching their target.

?The bottom line is that we lacked consistency over the four days to compete with a Jamaica team that had been playing consistently well for the last six weeks. We can?t take anything away from them,? was Smith?s assessment of a match in which his side had rallied in the field to snatch a small first innings lead, but had then surrendered their advantage on the third day.

The skipper was gracious enough in defeat, which is more than can be said for match referee Hugh Perry. In justifiably naming Ricardo Powell as Man-of-the-Match for his first innings? 71, he joked that the player should share his prize with Denzil James, ?the substitute who dropped him?.
It was an unkind and unnecessary jibe.

T&T?s failure to reach the final had much less to do with James? error than it had to do with their mental and tactical failures on Day Three when, first, they managed just 197 in their second innings and then conceded 102 runs in 23 overs to the home side when they began their victory chase.

Yesterday?s job was made a near mission impossible by that unfocused Sunday display.

But Smith did not accept that he and his side succumbed to the strain.

?I don?t think we cracked under the pressure,? he said. ?I think there were three main stages in the game?first the dropped catch off Ricardo Powell when he was on two, that would have given us a 100 runs lead. Secondly, when I got out at 168 for four, the rest of the team crumbled when we should have gone on to get 250. And thirdly, the flier that they got when we bowled in the second innings. We bowled too many four-balls.?

Samuels might have countered that his men put down three chances in the T&T second innings. Unlike Powell, though, neither Lendl Simmons nor Zaheer Ali made their escapes count. And yesterday, Sunday?s mistakes continued to haunt the visitors.

Mervyn Dillon (15-7-34-1), who despite his shoulder discomfort put the batsmen under sustained pressure in his two spells, got the early wicket of Garrick, well caught off the inside edge by wicketkeeper Keno Mason off a ball that jagged back at him.

Only 10 runs had been added to the score. And Dillon should have had another consolation wicket off the last ball to lunch when Keith Hibbert drove at a ball of full length, caught the edge, only for Mason to spill a low catch to his right.

No one else was able to follow Dillon?s lead, though. Ramnarine, as had happened at tiny Alpart two weeks ago, was belted about at sprawling Sabina by Chris Gayle on Sunday, and by Hinds and Samuels yesterday. They each took a six off him, to the glee of his detractors in the George Headley Stand. He could find no adequate response. By lunch, only the formalities were left to be completed at 174 for three.

Samuels and Hibbert duly did the deed. And they left Smith to consider what might have been.

?I think the team was good enough to win the tournament,? he still insisted. ?But, if we played consistently over four days every weekend, week in week out? No. We have to be honest and say no.

?But,? he continued, ?there are lot of positives we can take from the season, because we have the emergence of a lot of youngsters and we must remember the team is a young, developing team.?

Now, management must decide just how potential can be turned into championship performance.

* SOURCE: This match report by Garth Wattley was first published by the Trinidad Express.