Hoops peeved at missed catches

Carl Hooper is bemoaning the quality of catching by his players.

And the West Indies captain is also disappointed his bowlers could not adequately exploit the most helpful bowling conditions encountered in the Cable & Wireless eries against South Africa.

West Indies, choosing to field first on winning the toss in the third Test at Kensington Oval yesterday, restricted South Africa to 58 for three, but the visitors recovered to reach 244 for five with the help of two missed chances.

Neil McKenzie, out of sorts of most of the series, was put down down by Wavell Hinds at cover when he was 43 of his eventual 72, while opener Herschelle Gibbs was let off on 17. He made 34. Both chances were off recalled fast bowler Cameron Cuffy.

There are no excuses for dropping the sort of catches we've been dropping, Hooper said.

There are other areas we've got to work on. It's hard enough to fix the batting, now we seem to be dropping relatively easy chances.

We've got to try and put that right. The only way we can do that is with hard work.

It was noticeable that as soon was play was finished, Hooper was at the forefront of a catching session in front the Garfield Sobers Pavilion.

We've dropped something like eight or nine catches in three Test matches, he said.

It's a problem that we've identified before and it's obviously not getting better. Before it gets any worse, you've got to address the situation.

There was appreciable bounce and movement in the pitch during the first session, but the West Indies could not make full use of the advantage gained from winning the toss.

It is a bit disappointing. Given the state of the wicket in the first hour-and-a-half, it could easily have been five or six down, but I don't think we made them play enough, the skipper said.

The pitch played as I expected. If anything was going to happen, it was going to happen in the first session and it was important to try get into the lower half of the batting.

At lunch on that sort of track, you expect them to be at least four or five down. [Their total of] 244 for five is not the sort of score I expected at the end of the day.

The priority now is to limit South Africa to a total not too imposing.

We don't want them scoring 350 plus. Certainly a score under 325 I'd be happy with. It's a good batting wicket now and hopefully if we get them for under 325, we can make good use if it tomorrow [today] and the day after.