Marlon Samuels
BRIDGETOWN (CMC):
OLD RIVALS Barbados and Jamaica will be looking to leave the others behind, when they feature in the key contest in the latest round of matches in the 2005-06 Carib Beer Series, starting today at the Three Ws Oval.
The two teams are tied on 12 points and will be looking to cement themselves in second position in the Championship behind front-runners Trinidad & Tobago with their first victory of the season.
Barbados, playing their first match on home soil this season, gained first innings points from drawn matches against Guyana and Windward Islands.
"Jamaica are very experienced side, and they have a few West Indies players," Ryan Hinds, the Barbados captain, told reporters. "It is going to be a very competitive game. We are looking forward to the challenge, and we are looking for an outright win. "We will be looking to do what we've been doing all season - get a pretty good total and take it from there."
FIRST TIME FOR HINDS
For Hinds, this will also be the first time he will be leading the national side before a very critical home crowd, since he was given the reins of captaincy, following the retirement of the long-serving Courtney Browne.
Jamaica, on the other hand, plunged to a 282-run defeat to T&T last weekend, following two drawn matches last year against Leeward and Windward Islands in which they too gained first innings points.
For Jamaica captain Wavell Hinds, it's a chance to inspire his side to make comeback from defeat in front of a crowd of which a few believe he has the right credentials to lead the West Indies side.
"We're looking to reverse what happened in T&T," he said. "Obviously we didn't play to our true potential. That came from improper execution and not sticking to a game plan. We have to got out and executive properly and start in front.
GAME PLAN
"We did not apply ourselves. That showed up in our scores. People got starts and satisfied their own egos, and did not try to stick with the game plan. "We need to make sure that we get ourselves in that frame of mind of trying to win the game, sticking to our game plan and trying to achieve our personal goals."
Since 2000, the Jamaicans have dominated the Barbadians in the regional first-class championship, winning half of the 10 matches the two sides have contested.
The two sides have played half-dozen of those 10 matches in Barbados, with the two teams winning two apiece.
Last year, Jamaica won a tense match by 10 runs, and will be hoping that their slight edge in experience over the Barbadians will be enough to take them over the hump.
SQUADS
Barbados' 13-member squad for the match includes Fidel Edwards, who switches places with fellow West Indies fast bowler Tino Best.
Jamaica travelled from Port-of-Spain with the same squad from which they picked for the match against T&T.
The Three Ws Oval pitch should be typically hard and true, with the weather likely to stray between early morning showers and long periods of sunshine.
BARBADOS: Ryan Hinds (captain), Ryan Austin, Jason Bennett, Wayne Blackman, Ian Bradshaw, Patrick Browne, Fidel Edwards, Alcindo Holder, Ryan Nurse, Floyd Reifer, Dale Richards, Dwayne Smith, Kurt Wilkinson.
JAMAICA (from): Wavell Hinds (captain), Carlton Baugh, Jr., Dave Bernard, Jr., Gareth Breese, Shawn Findlay, Tamar Lambert, Jermaine Lawson, Xavier Marshall, Nikita Miller, Brenton Parchment, Andrew Richardson, Marlon Samuels, Jerome Taylor.
UMPIRES: Vincent Bullen, Vincent Weekes, Reserve: Tunley Franklyn.
