Head coach of Jamaica's senior cricket team, Junior Bennett, is expressing confidence ahead of their departure today for St Kitts and Nevis, where they will play the Leewards Islands in their opening fixture of the 2008 WICB four-day championship, which bowls off on Friday in three territories.
Describing Jamaica's chances as as good as any, Bennett, who last year guided Jamaica to three of four available regional titles, said he is happy with the make-up of the team and despite missing eight of their regular starters due to West Indies duties, he did not see no reason why they should not represent the country well.
Concerned about chances
"We are not concerned about the opposition that we may face, as our chances are as good as anyone else," said Bennett when asked about the potential pressures of retaining the title. "All we need to do is play good, consistent cricket for a very long period of time as the season will be long, and once we do this, I have no doubt that we will do very well," he declared.
Jamaica, who in addition to the four-day title, took home the four-day challenge shield (which has been scrapped this year to facilitate a home-and-away 12-round championship) and the regional one-day crown, will be captained by Tamar Lambert in the absence of regular skipper Christopher Gayle, who is performing similar duties with the West Indies team in New Zealand.
The team includes three debutants, all former West Indies youth players - opener Horace Miller and pacer Jason Dawes and former Jamaica Under-19 bowler, leg-spinner Gavin Wallace.
Apart from Lambert and regulars Brenton Parchment and David Bernard Jr and West Indies batsmen Wavell Hinds and Donovan Pagon, who will both be making a return to regional cricket, Jamaica will rely heavily on fringe players Danza Hyatt, Lorenzo Ingram, Andre Russell, Keith Hibbert, Odean Brown and Andrew Richardson.
This, to many, is viewed as a relatively inexperienced squad, who providing that Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and to a lesser extent Guyana, will be close to full strength, could find the going tough, especially in the team's first two games which will be played back to back on the road, first in St Kitts and then in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.
Not so, says Bennett, as the squad in balanced in all areas and will mellow with time.
"This 14-man squad that the selectors have selected have been entrusted with the responsibility of representing the country well and I have all confidence that once they stick to the basics and take it match by match and session by session, they will be able to deliver," he said.
Professional views
Bennett, who is the former coach of reigning high-school champions St Elizabeth Technical and in the past has guided Jamaica to numerous Under-19 crowns, also gave his views on the Leeward Islands team, which lost within two days of their three-day practice match against the Windward Islands on the weekend.
"They have some seasoned players who we have been playing for years and who are quite experienced. We know that they played a game at the weekend and underperformed, but we will not be using this and taking things for granted. It's about playing cricket on the day and as such we have to go out there and play our game," said Bennett, who has been coaching the team for the last three years.