That is the way to bat

Tony Becca, Contributor

The first-class cricket season got off to a wonderful start for Jamaica last week, a start which left Jamaicans singing and dancing, and looking to victory number four.

At the start, with Jamaica falling for a mere 150 runs, things did not look so bright, but after fighting back nicely, after limiting Guyana to a lead of 33, and with Marlon Samuels leading the way with a majestic, undefeated innings of 250, Jamaica strolled to victory by the handsome margin of 165 runs.

It was Samuels at his best, and almost every ball, if not all of them, defensively and aggressively, off the front-foot and the back-foot, against pace and spin, especially when cutting and driving, came out the middle of the bat.

Samuels, simply put, was head and shoulders above the rest, and although he will not score heavily all the time, it was a perfect example of how he should bat all the time.

He demonstrated a respect for the game, he looked to give his best right through the innings. He cherished his wicket, he gave respect where respect was due, and he picked his shots, his amazing shots, almost perfectly.

When Samuels bats like he did on Sunday at Alpart, like he has done only a few times since hinting of his class as a schoolboy, no one in West Indies cricket, not at this time, can match strides with him.

The Guyanese attack, but for Brendon Bess and Devendra Bishoo, it must be said, was not the best, and even they were not consistently good.

With Shivnarine Chanderpaul on the way out, however, and even with Christopher Gayle still in, it would be nice to see a West Indies batting line-up with Adrian Barath at number two, Daren Bravo at number three, Samuels, this Samuels, at number four, and Ramnaresh Sarwan at number five in the batting order.

That would be a promising batting side, and that would be the start of something good.

Looking at the matches in the tournament, with the West Indies team away, the results were not surprising, and neither were the individual performances.

Jamaica defeated Guyana, as was expected. The Combined Colleges and Campuses, probably not as expected, defeated the Windward Islands. England Lions defeated the Leeward Islands, and Trinidad and Tobago led Barbados on first innings in a drawn match.

Disappointing

The Barbados versus Trinidad and Tobago match aside, the scoreboard reading 395 and 240 for three against 413, the batting of the West Indians was disappointing with only Samuels, Kieran Powell of the Leeward Islands with 131, and Kraigg Brathwaite of Barbados with 102 not out scoring centuries against some poor bowling.

It was good to see the 20-year-old left-handed Powell ticking off his first first-class century and the 18-year-old Brathwaite his second, just as it was good, after watching Samuels' hard work coming into this season, after listening to Samuels talk about it, after hearing Samuels confess that he has never been so fit, to hear that Powell believed that his "long innings" was due to the drills while attending the High Performance Centre in Barbados and to his fitness, and his recent desire to bat long.

If only there were more high-performance centres in the West Indies, or if only players with potential, real potential, were allowed to attend the high-performance centre more frequently and for longer periods, West Indies batting would now be blooming.

As far as the bowling was concerned, the England Lions batsmen enjoyed themselves against the West Indian bowling by ticking off 553 for six declared with James Hildreth,149, and Craig Kieswetter, 116, scoring centuries.

Three West Indian bowlers, Bess, Nkrumah Bonner, and Odean Brown, took five wickets in an innings, and although I did not see Bonner's effort, Bess promised much with his.

Bess, tall and slim at six feet four inches, has already played one Test match. It was against South Africa at Kensington Oval in 2010, he picked up one wicket, and I sincerely hope, as a West Indian, there will be many more Test matches and many, many more wickets to come in what, hopefully, will be a wonderful career.