The Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) is set to make fundamental changes to the way the national senior team prepares for regional tournaments, according to technical director James Adams.

The local cricket body recently held a meeting to look into matters surrounding Jamaica’s below-par performance at the Caribbean Twenty20 Tournament staged in Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago in July. Reports and recommendations were submitted by the team’s head coach Junior Bennett, manager Courtney Francis, fitness trainer David Bernard Snr and captain Tamar Lambert.

Adams told the Observer that in the debriefing three main issues arose and were closely examined by the JCA executives. One issue centred on the controversial selection of Lambert as captain of the 14-man squad, even though West Indies skipper Chris Gayle was a part of the set-up.

Said Adams: “There was an issue in terms of the timing of the announcement of the team captain. Normally what happens is that the captain of the team is recommended to the Board and signed off early enough, so that he can have a certain amount of preparation time with the (training) squad, leading up to the selection of the final 14.”

Adams added that the Association will revert to its policy of announcing the team captain way ahead of the final squad being selected to prevent any negative psychological impact on the players.

“That (selection) process was not carried out this year and we feel that it had a detrimental effect on the squad. That would have to be put down as an oversight from the selection panel.

“We would like to see things reverting to what is the accepted JCA protocol, to have the captain being nominated and signed off well in advance of the selection of the 14 so that in the period where the 18-man squad is in training he can practise with the team as captain,” the JCA technical director said.

Lambert’s appointment as captain had come as a surprise to many since the stocky-built middle order batsman usually takes a backseat to Gayle on the rare occasions that the hard-hitting left-hander is available to play for Jamaica.

Interestingly, that appointment had coincided with the resignation of chairman of selectors Nehemiah Perry, who had a falling-out with JCA president Paul Campbell over reported “policy breaches”.

Another issue which came up is the structure of the local club T20 cricket competition, which is felt to offer limited practice for potential national representatives.

“We don’t play enough Twenty20 (cricket) in Jamaica between the clubs and parishes. As it stands now it is organised on a knockout basis and we (at the JCA) are now accepting that it is not sufficient for preparing this generation or the next generation for that version of the game,” Adams said.

While highlighting the importance of the three-month long Social Development Commission (SDC) T20 Community competition, he told this newspaper that the local body will look at revamping the T20 club competition.

“I know there is a lot of Twenty20 played at SDC level but at club level, to have it on a knockout basis where potential national players could end up playing only one game per year is nowhere near enough. The recommendation coming out of the Board meeting was to look at revamping that competition so that more games can be played at club level,” added the former West Indies captain.

Earlier this month, Francis, who is also Cricket Operations Officer at the JCA, told the Observer that an obvious weakness of the Jamaica team was the inexperience of its players in the T20 format.

“Of the other top teams in the region I have found out that Jamaica plays the least amount of T20 cricket and to do well at the regional level, a properly structured local Twenty20 competition is needed. Right now in our local knockout (T20) competition the team that wins only plays four games, and that’s not enough,” Francis had said.

The Jamaicans finished fourth at the inaugural competition after suffering semi-final and third-place play-off losses to Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago, respectively.

Guyana took the title after edging Barbados in the final and will be the sole regional representatives at the Airtel Champions League in South Africa next month, which offers approximately US$11 million in prize money.

Adams said the training schedule heading into the 10-day regional T20 tournament was also a concern that the coaching staff had.

“The amount of time that was allotted to the team for preparation leading up to the tournament… it was not as much as the coach and I think is sufficient.

“We accept that it’s a resource-driven issue, based on how much funds the Board has available, but we expressed dissatisfaction with the amount of time we had to prepare for this tournament,” said Adams, while noting that both he and Bennett have recommended more time be given to the coaching staff to better prepare squads for future tournaments.