By Anthony Foster, Freelance WriterNATIONAL YOUTH coach Junior Bennett will be hoping for a turnaround in the form of his batsmen if Jamaica are to stand a chance in the West Indies TCL Group Under-19 championships in Guyana early next month.
The young Jamaicans played to a draw against a Select XI in their third and final practice match before their departure on Sunday for Guyana. Scores were: Select XI 360 and 250 for nine; Jamaica Under-19 170.
The 170 left coach Bennett concerned.
"I am particularly pleased with our bowlers, but as I said before, we were hoping for our batsmen to come good in this match," said Bennett.
"Once the batting comes good, we should be very competitive", Bennett said of his team's chances in the competition.
On yesterday's final day the Under-19s, resuming on 150-6, lost their last four wickets for the additional 20 runs. Jamie Goodheart added two to his overnight score to end on 31 while Oral Rankin, Alton Beckford and Boris Hutchinson were all dismissed for nought.
Jamie Trenchfield was left not out on 18. Off-spinner Bevon Brown took all four wickets to fall on the final day for 26 runs.
"I was expecting more from our batsmen," Bennett said. "I think they should have made use of this match in terms of occupying the crease. However, the Select team (Jamaica) was a very good team and these are the sort of practice matches that we really need. They really extended us which is good," said Bennett.
With two days remaining before their departure, Bennett said the Simon Jackson-led team will focus on mental work.
"We have to work on the mental part of their cricket now. We have a few days to work on that", he added. "We have to look at why batsmen keep getting out for 40's and 50's. I think it is more mental than anything else, so we have to work on that."
The opening position which has the experienced Xavier Marshall is yet to click. "We are not getting the starts we wanted, but Marshall is a senior opener, he just played one innings, so hopefully he will come good in the tournament.
"Once he comes good and joins Jackson, who I believed is in good form at the moment, we may just get the start that we need," Bennett said.
The middle order apart from Donovan Sinclair has struggled as "they are the ones that keep getting out in the 30's and 40's".
"Once we can find two or three of them to go on and play big innings that will definitely enhance our chances of doing extremely well," Bennett added.
Sinclair, younger brother of Jamaica wicketkeeper Matthew, could be called upon to perform duties behind the stumps as an injured Jason Nelson left the selectors with a hole to plug.
Because of the nature of the pitches in Guyana, Bennett said that he will be looking to his spinners to cut down the opposition.
"Once the spinners are doing well we should be able to bowl out our opponents twice," said Bennett who has so far guided Jamaica to two one-day and two three-day titles.
In the match which ended yesterday the spinners justified their selection by taking 14 of the 19 wickets on a pitch which was prepared to play like those in Guyana. Howard Powell (3-52), Alton Beckford (2-56) and Gavin Wallace (2-51).
With regards to the pitch Bennett said: "We asked for it because most of the pitches in Guyana over the years are slow and low, so we asked for a sort of wicket like that.
"The plan was to get them to adapt to the conditions that they will face up there," he continued.
