West Indies Domestic: High Hopes

Kingston - There is optimism in the Barbados camp that two of their seasoned batsmen will emerge from their disappointing form in the Busta Cup.

Roland Holder, a prolific scorer in his 14 previous seasons of first-class cricket and Floyd Reifer, one of only five current day players boasting a double-century at this level, have yet to compile a half-century in any of Barbados' first three matches.

Although nowhere near his best, Holder occupied the crease for some time in making 43 and 19 in Barbados' third-round match against Jamaica which ended here on Monday.

The left-handed Reifer, however, continued his lean run with scores of seven and nought, bringing his tally for the season to 59 runs from five innings.

Team coach William Bourne was still upbeat yesterday that Reifer and Holder would produce something significant before the end of the competition.

'I think Reifer is probably going through a bad patch at the moment. It seems to be a confidence thing in his case,' Bourne said.

'We have been working with him and probably in time, hopefully, sooner rather than later, he will come good. We are confident that he will come through.'

Bourne's observation of Holder was more encouraging.

'Holder has shown some signs of getting back to that (his best form),' he said about the 32-year-old right-hander with 15 first-class hundreds since his debut in 1986.

'He hasn't scored many runs, but he has shown in this game in both innings he will be there. He fought in both innings and that is very good for us.'

In reflecting on Barbados' emphatic defeat to Jamaica by 114 runs, Bourne outlined three reasons for the disappointing result.

They were: Barbados' inability to go in the ascendancy after restricting the hosts to 67 for five on the first morning, lack of concentration in pursuit of a hardly daunting first innings total of 195 and a lack of bowling penetration in Jamaica's second innings of 318.

That total was helped significantly by a sixth-wicket century partnership between Robert Samuels and wicket-keeper Matthew Sinclair at a stage when Barbados were trying to stage a fightback.

'Jamaica had a bigger will than us. When they came back on the third morning, Samuels and Sinclair really fought,' Bourne said.

'That was the turning point in the game,' he said.