Jamaica's coach Junior Bennett

Leaders Jamaica and fifth-placed the Leeward Islands will square off today in the eighth round of the West Indies Cricket Board four-day championship at Sabina Park.

The Jamaicans, who lead the seven-team championship with 60 points, will be seeking to extend their lead over Barbados who, on 51 points, will travel to Trinidad and Tobago. In the third match of the round, Guyana will host Windward Islands.

The Trinidadians are third on 39 points, three more than fourth-placed Windward Islands, and eight more than the Leeward Islands. The Combined Colleges and Campuses (15) and Guyana (10) round off the standings.

High spirits

"We are in high spirits at the moment after a fairly decent first round and want to continue to reproduce the type of cricket that we played in the first round, and try and improve on it," said Jamaica's coach, Junior Bennett, after his team's final net session at the game's venue yesterday.

"It's a league format so the team with the most points will win. So we just have to go out there and play good, consistent cricket, and once you do that we should get the result we are looking for," Bennett added.

The Jamaicans, who are coming off an innings and 13-run win over the Windward Islands last weekend, have named an unchanged 13-man squad for the match, while the Leewards, who defeated the Combined Colleges and Campuses by 111 runs, will be without their captain and leading batsman, Runako Morton, and bowler Anthony Martin, who were both dropped earlier this week for disciplinary reasons.

Exciting teenage batsman Kieron Powell, who is nursing an injury, will also be missing from the Leeward Islands line-up. According to Omari Banks, one of the players in contention to lead the team, the Leewards are ready to do well.

"I think it's going to be a good contest. The last time we played Jamaica in St Kitts it was a good contest where we won first innings, but fell back in the second innings where we didn't bat as well as we could have.

"We have learnt from the mistakes we made before, and the fact that we are coming off a good victory against the Combined Campuses and Colleges, I think team morale and team spirit are high, and we are looking forward to a victory," said Banks.

The teams

Jamaica (from): Xavier Marshall, Brenton Parchment, Donovan Pagon, Tamar Lambert, Wavell Hinds, David Bernard Jr, Keith Hibbert, Nikita Miller, Odean Brown, Andrew Richardson, Gavin Wallace, Andre Russell, Danza Hyatt.

Leeward Islands (from): Austin Richards, Shane Jeffers, Cadville Rogers, Monticin Hodge, Omari Banks, Tonitto Willett, Steve Liburd, Devon Thomas, Wilden Cornwall, Justin Athanaze, Aquito Willett, Gavin Tonge, Brent DeFreitas.