Busta Cup: Champs at full strength

Barbados will be at full-strength in the Busta Cup for the first time this season with the return of Test players Adrian Griffith, Sherwin Campbell and Pedro Collins for the third-round clash against Jamaica.

The match starts on Friday at Sabina Park.

Dropped from the 13-man squad captained by Philo Wallace are batsmen Wayne Blackman, Kerry Lucas and Antonio Mayers.

The return of left-arm fast-medium Collins will almost certainly mean that either fast bowler Dayne Maynard or all-rounder Ian Bradshaw will be omitted.

The other player likely to be left out is leg-spinner Dave Marshall, who had a disappointing bowl in the just-concluded match against the Leewards.

The four leading opening batsmen in the Caribbean will be on show at Sabina: Griffith, Campbell, and Wallace of Barbados, and Robert Samuels of Jamaica.

The Barbados batting line-up has fuelled plenty of interest and thats because Wallace has publicly stated that he is keen to open, even with Griffith and Campbell in the team.

If the skipper sticks to his guns, the West Indies pair will be separated and Griffith, the leading batsman on the tour of New Zealand, will have to go in at No. 3.

The resolute Griffith made his first Test hundred in the opening Test and averaged 61 in the series, while Campbell cracked 170 in the Hamilton Test in posting 276 for the first wicket with his compatriot.

The match represents another opportunity for Test discards Floyd Reifer and Roland Holder to make major scores.

Both failed against Guyana and the Leewards and will be hoping to rediscover their touch against a modest attack led by Dwight Mais and Laurie Williams.

Jamaicas top order, like Barbados, has managed little thus far, with much depending on experienced players like Samuels and Delroy Morgan and Williams, who lashed a hundred in the first round off the Windwards.

Samuels is gradually returning to the form he showed in the 1996/97 season when he took a Test hundred off New Zealand and made 76 on a difficult Perth pitch against McGrath and Warne.

The Barbados team leaves this morning at about 9:10 on BWIA.

Philo Wallace (captain), Sulieman Benn, Ian Bradshaw, Courtney Browne, Hendy Bryan, Sherwin Campbell, Pedro Collins, Floyd Reifer, Adrian Griffith, Roland Holder, Ryan Hurley, Dave Marshall and Dayne Maynard