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Cricket embarrassment

by Barbados Today
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A former manager of a local cricket club is expressing grave disappointment at Barbados Pride’s performance in the CWI CG Insurance Super50 Cup in which the team performed abysmally and were knocked out ahead of the semi-finals last week.

Adrian Smiley Bayley told Barbados TODAY he was calling on management of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) to give the Barbadian public an explanation and “a full debriefing”.

The Barbados Pride, led by Jason Holder, lost to the Jamaica Scorpions by 51 runs, two Sundays ago in the match that determined the last qualifying place in the semi-finals of the six-team Championship in Antigua. After a series of poor performances, Barbados meekly surrendered match-winning positions on two occasions with both bat and ball in a must-win game. Scorpions first recovered from 87 for 8 to make 218 and then the Pride collapsed from 141 for 2 to 167 all out.

Bayley, a former manager of the Carlton Cricket Club and member of the Barbados Cricket Association for more than three decades, said for Barbados to finish last in the regional competition was “a serious situation”.

“Barbados’ performance in this competition was appalling,” he said.

Bayley said he was certain the approximately 80 registered cricket clubs in Barbados and supporters of the sport wanted to know exactly what transpired resulting in Barbados Pride being knocked out of the tournament.

“We have to look at this in a way where Barbados had the best players at their disposable for this tournament, and for a cricketing nation that is so rich and strong for almost  60 years, the board of management of the BCA has to come and speak to the associate members, which are the clubs, and they have to come and speak to the cricketing fraternity of Barbados,” Bayley insisted.

Making it clear that he was not making any judgment on the captaincy, and neither was he questioning or criticizing the selection process, Bayley said however, he was simply annoyed at the team’s performance, adding that “when you look at the performance it has to be questioned”.

“No one can expect a performance like this,” he insisted.

“I am very concerned about the way that Barbados went about this tournament. I don’t know if the luminaries of Barbados cricket team think they have an entitlement to play for Barbados when they feel to or when they don’t feel to turn up. It has never been so for Barbados cricket. There has always been a clamouring for Barbadian players who went on to represent the West Indies. Whenever they represent Barbados they would always give of their best,” he said.

Bayley said he was reliably informed that while the other regional teams travelled with a more seasoned player as a mentor, Barbados might have dropped the ball in that regard.

“Guyana had Chanderpaul, the Windward Islands had Devon Smith, Jamaica had Nikita Miller, the Leeward Islands had Cornwall . . . They either played test cricket or played cricket at first class level in the region. Information reaching me is that Barbados board of management ratified Desmond Leo Haynes with a 116 test matches to his name, it was taken to the board and supported by the board and for some strange reason Desmond Haynes was not accepted by the management team of cricket and it is a slap in the face of one of the few icons who always give back to Barbados cricket – club cricket,” Bayley explained.

He said the BCA board of management should also come clean on “why Desmond Haynes was not accepted when the board ratified the position of Desmond going with the team, not as the coach or manager but someone who is a mentor to the Barbados side”.

The former cricket club manager told Barbados TODAY he was concerned this latest performance was an indication of the standard of the sport, insisting that it was simply unacceptable “for Barbados to go into a tournament in 2021 and finish last”.

Bayley said when it comes to cricket Barbados did not subscribe to the notion of “we win some and we lose some”. He explained that “when Barbados go on to a cricket field you go on to win it, and we go to win all. That is the culture of Barbados cricket”.

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