?Where?s the commitment?? the coach asks his players
National coach Gus Logie had high praise for teenage bowler Malachi Jones after yesterday?s eight-wicket loss to Holland, but took a swipe at other players in his team ? claiming they appeared to lack commitment.
Nineteen year-old Jones took one of only two Dutch wickets to fall in returning respectable figures of one for 49 off ten overs, and Logie hinted he could become a permanent fixture in the team.
?I think Malachi Jones is a young man who on this tour has grown in stature, he?s really been a revelation,? said the coach.
?But I think it?s unfortunate that some of the other players, to me, have gone backwards . . . their own commitment to the cause doesn?t seem the same, and that?s very worrying at this point in time.
?I trust that they will look in the mirror and hopefully in the next days and weeks reassess their own priorities, and maybe we?ll see some improvement in their performances.?
Reflecting on the latest loss, Logie, not for the first time, queried whether his players were learning from previous errors.
?We lost three quick wickets and the pitch did a little bit early this morning. It?s something that happens most times in these parts. Bowlers make the best of it and we had to be a lot more cautious in our start. Unfortunately we weren?t. We started to build in the middle between (David) Hemp and Janeiro (Tucker) and that was looking promising until again . . . we didn?t go on.
?We?ve seen the opposition make much better use of these situations.
?We just couldn?t build on that little bit of momentum. I think Hemp played well for his 50, Janeiro got 30-odd for the first time in a while, Lionel came in and played a few good shots, looked good and gave it away as he does . . . basically that?s becoming very repetitive.
?You wonder, are we learning? This is the difficult thing to understand. We?ve been in these kind of situations time and time again and we haven?t been able to get out of them.
?Again we couldn?t bat out our 50 overs, which is basic in this kind of cricket and it is a cardinal sin not to do so.
?Our total of 194 represented a recovery of some sorts but nowhere near enough on this type of pitch to put pressure on the opposition.? As for today?s last tournament match against Scotland who maintained their unbeaten record yesterday by beating hosts Kenya and booking their place in Wednesday?s final, Logie said there would still be an enormous amount of pride at stake.
?It certainly would give me great satisfaction (if we could go out with a victory).
?I?ve said before, we?ve lost against teams that sometimes we feel we should not have lost to and beaten teams that nobody expected us to beat. That?s the unpredictability of the Bermuda team and cricket in general.
?But I would like to see the energy level of the players lifted for the Scotland game and everybody come out with the attitude that they?ve got nothing to lose.?