From Port of Spain to St Philip, it has rained on Barbados Pride’s parade in the new West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Professional Cricket League (PCL).
So much so that long-serving Barbados senior coach Hendy Springer is bowling for a change from this year’s November start to February in the future for the four-day competition among the six regional franchises.
“It is something new and a number of things are being tried but it is unfortunate that the organisers may not have taken the weather pattern at this time of the year into consideration,” Springer told SUN SPORT yesterday.
Two straight days were rained out without a ball being bowled in the second-round match between Barbados Pride and the Jamaica franchise at the Windward Club.
Barbados also endured the disappointment of not winning their first-round match against Trinidad and Tobago Red Force at Queen’s Park Oval, mainly because rain severely curtailed play on the last two days.
“I think it is very unfortunate, coming out of Trinidad and missing the opportunity to win a game through bad weather and now not getting any play [on the first two days],” Springer said.
The former Barbados off-spinner also noted that rain had plagued the regional one-day tournament in the past when it was staged in October and November.
“For a long time, when we had the one-day tournament, I can recall that rain has fallen at this time of the year in places like Antigua, Jamaica and Guyana,” he said.
While conceding that the itinerary is now fairly packed, Springer said it just requires some tweaking with the dates for the various tournaments.
“We already have January locked down for the [regional] one-day competition, so I think we could go back to the drier months of February, March, April and May and play two rounds of first-class cricket and try to finish before the CPL [Caribbean Premier League] starts,” Springer noted.
“We can then have the international tour to run parallel with the first-class cricket, as is done in many other parts of the cricketing world. But you will work the first-class fixtures around the Test match dates and venues to ensure that there won’t be a clash with a first-class match and a Test in the same territory. It will also guarantee that the guys you choose for international duty have match practice under their belt as they would be playing cricket when they are selected,” Springer reasoned.
He also said that the upshot of rain now washing out play is that with the West Indies going off to South Africa for a three-match Test series at month end, some players will be short of match play.
“Some guys who just came back from India have not been able to get in a game, so they will be without that much needed match practice,” he said.
After missing their respective team’s first match, Barbados left-arm spinner Sulieman Benn and Jamaica fast bowler Jerome Taylor were hoping to get out in the middle for the first time since returning home from India.
