Jamaica coach worried about batting

Jamaica coach Junior Bennett has said he is satisfied with his team's five-wicket in their opening match of the Carib Beer series against Leeward Islands, but expressed concern over his team's batting after they slumped to 20 for 4 chasing 115 before staging a recovery.

"I'm not too pleased with our batting in both innings," Bennett told the Jamaica Observer. "But we are extremely pleased to get off to a positive start. We will definitely have to look at the batsmen and talk to them before our next game. I think both our openers got out the same way twice [hooking] in both innings, which is not good."

But Bennett praised his spinners, Odean Brown, who claimed the Man-of-the-Match award for his 10 wickets and Nikita Miller, who took seven wickets. "There are some aspects of our cricket that we are extremely proud of. I think we bowled extremely well. Brown and Miller bowled well, supported by [Andre] Russell and [David] Bernard.

"We took some good catches and our ground fielding was also good," he said. Jamaica will need to sort out their batting before their next match against a Combined Campuses and Colleges team starting at Kensington Park on Friday, January 11.

Meanwhile, Leeward Islands' coach, John Archibald, said his side had positives to take from the match despite their low scores of 155 and 183 in the two innings. "Even in losing you can take away the good things. We saw some fight, some resilience. But the most important thing is that the guys didn't hang their heads.

"Anthony Martin, the legspinner, bowled very economically. The batting of young Montcin Hodge, who showed a lot of character, was also good, and it was also nice to see Javier Liburd finding his footing."

Martin took four wickets, including figures of 3 for 31 in the first innings, Hodge scored a patient 64 gathered over five hours, and Liburd scored 43 in the first innings. Leewards will be looking to gain their first points of the season when they take on Windward Islands in Grenada on Friday.