Coach hits out at Trinidad pitch

Hendy Springer isn't making any excuse, but the Barbados coach feels the pitch they encountered at the Queen's Park Oval last weekend wasn't up to scratch for first-class cricket.

On a newly relaid surface of low bounce, Barbados crashed to their third successive Busta Cup defeat this season in a match in which they managed scores of 174 and 229.

They were competitive for the most part, but Trinidad and Tobago, inspired by two crucial half-centuries from captain Richard Smith, went on to win by four wickets on Monday.

The pitch was very low, even on the first day. I don't think it was a pitch that was good enough for first-class cricket, Springer said on his return to Barbados yesterday.

Balls actually rolled on the ground at some stages. The Trinidad batsmen were vigilant enough to get on the front foot and stay on the front foot something that they are accustomed to. They did it a lot better than we did.

While conceding that batting was difficult, the Barbados coach took nothing away from the Trinidad and Tobago side who had to contend with the strip on the fourth innings of the fourth day in achieving their first victory in a first-class match over Barbados since 1996.

I am not making any excuses. Trinidad played well, they handled the conditions well. Both teams had a go at them and Trinidad did better in handling the conditions, he said.

The game was won by the team who could have mastered the conditions a lot better. We didn't score as many runs as we would have liked in our first innings, but it proved to be a competitive total.

Springer, however, added that he might make his feelings known to authorities in a report at the end of the season.

The pitches in Trinidad have been playing that way for a long time, said the former Barbados off-spinner. Pitches have got to be conducive to the development of players in West Indies cricket.

I don't think that pitches like these or any other place that a pitch plays as low as that are good for the development of West Indies cricket.

Chairman of the Barbados selection panel, Richard Prof Edwards, who watched the match in Port-of-Spain, agreed that the Queen's Park Oval strip was not an easy one to contend with.

Trinidad is always one of the more difficult places to bat on. From the time I played there, I always found it was always more difficult to bat on, said Edwards, who played for Barbados and the West Indies in the 1960s.

We have some rather inexperienced players at this time, but they did well.

They tried their best. You were always looking for the ball to keep low. You had to be trying to get on the front foot to make sure you didn't get out lbw.