Ridley Jacobs praises PCL after first season

Antigua Observer article.

St John's, Antigua - Former West Indies wicketkeeper and coach of the Leeward Islands Hurricane, Ridley Jacobs, has graded the 2014/15 regional cricket season above the pass mark.

The Antiguan said all aspects of both the Super50 and 4-Day tournaments were of acceptable standards.

“The umpiring has been quite good for most part and we had a lot of guys scoring a lot of hundreds and some bowlers getting a lot of five-wicket hauls and stuff, so it has been competitive. I’ve learnt a lot and most of these players as well have learnt a lot so I think it has been good overall,” he said.

Leeward Islands finished at the bottom of the table in the 4-Day tournament with 54 points, 11 points behind Red Force on 65 points. They also finished at the bottom of the table in the Super50 competition.

Leewards, Jacobs admitted, got off to a late start.

“The players had a break after the Leeward Islands’ tournament and we were basically playing the One-Day tournament and then we went right into the four-day tournament. We went to St Kitts hoping to get players together to prepare, not knowing that when we got to St Kitts it was going to be all about contracts and these things which took up a lot of our time, so the players were not prepared going into the tournament,” the coach said.

Leeward Islands rallied to record victories in their final two matches of the 4-Day competition, beating Trinidad and Tobago Red Force by five wickets on Monday and Jamaica by four wickets on March 16.