West Indies Domestic: Rose's garden

Kingston - Sabina Park was the venue of a major eruption yesterday.

Franklyn Rose sent tremors around the ground at exactly 4:30 p.m. (5:30 East Caribbean time) with a sensational hat-trick against shell-shocked Barbados.

The reputations of the batsmen he dismissed made the rare feat even more remarkable. Sherwin Campbell, Adrian Griffith and Philo Wallace are three batsmen with Test experience boasting of more than 7 000 runs and 17 centuries among them at this level.

When Chris Gayle accepted a comfortable second slip catch offered by Wallace to complete the hat-trick, the noise that reverberated from the famous George Headley Stand suggested that 15 000 spectators were at the ground and not 1 500.

Ironically, Rose had been terribly frustrated a few moments earlier. Wallace had twice pulled him for boundaries; there was a missed catch at first slip by Ricardo Powell; then Rose gave away a run by kicking away a ball struck back by Wallace.

That set the stage for the high drama that was so follow.

Next ball, Campbell was totally deceived by a change of pace and provided a return catch which Rose gleefully accepted over his head.

Adrian Griffith arrived at No. 3 to face the last ball of Rose?s third over but could not keep down a slightly lifting delivery on his hip and turned a catch into the lap of forward short-leg.

Courtney Walsh, almost unnoticed, bowled the next over before Rose had his hat-trick by removing Wallace for a breezy 25.

Rose, seeking to regain favour after his disappointing tour of New Zealand, was not yet finished. He featured in the next two dismissals, of Floyd Reifer and Courtney Browne.

The left-handed Reifer was bowled off the inside-edge, while Browne could not repeat his heroics of last weekend and was out to a top-edged hook off Laurie Williams? first ball. Rose was the catcher at long-leg.

Rose would have had his fifth wicket had wicket-keeper Matthew Sinclair not put down a catch to his right when Ryan Hurley was only two.

Hurley responded by racing to 25, but Barbados still have plenty of work to do after Jamaica staged a grand recovery.

Rose himself was part of that early fightback with a lusty 32 off 28 balls that beefed up their eventual total.

Jamaica, boasting nine players with international experience, hardly looked the part at the crease with the exception of opener Chris Gayle and all-rounder Laurie Williams.

Wavell Hinds and Jimmy Adams were unconvincing and Ricardo Powell and Robert Samuels were out the loose strokes at a stage when Jamaica needed stability.

Barbados? bowling, especially in the pre-lunch session, was impressive and all but one of the five dismissals in the first two hours resulted to catches behind the wicket.

The unheralded Carl Wright, retained after commendable performances in the first two matches, was out to the third ball of the day, edging left-armer Pedro Collins to second slip where Campbell accepted the first of three catches.

While Hinds, one of six Jamaicans just back from New Zealand, was scratchy, Gayle was commanding and despatched the ball to the boundary seven times in an innings that promised so much more.

The in-form left-hander, who has already made unbeaten scores of 86 and 121, was on 39 when Maynard, in the course of a second spell, ripped through the middle order with three wickets in a handful of balls.

Powell chose to attack his first ball. His foot-work was non-existent and the 20-year-old, who has come under pressure for his shot selection, edged a catch to the ?keeper.

The experienced Samuels was also the victim of an indiscreet shot that ended in a head-high catch by Wallace at extra-cover.

In a twinkling of an eye, Jamaica were reduced from 60 for two to 60 for five. They needed the positive and measured strokeplay of Williams in a sixth-wicket stand with Adams to revive the innings, the pair adding 72 in almost two hours before Hurley parted them.

Up until then, Hurley's off-breaks were innocuous and Williams was batting comfortably. He was two short of a half-century when he was deceived by a fast, fullish delivery that struck him on the boot in front of the stumps.

Adams followed quickly to a bat-pad catch at silly-point off Hurley.

Then came Rose: with bat and ball.