HEAD coach Junior Bennett said “poor batting” is to be blamed for Jamaica’s capitulation against hosts Trinidad & Tobago in the semi-final of the NAGICO Super50 cricket tournament last Wednesday.

The bulk of the squad returned to the island yesterday and head coach Junior Bennett said that, while the Queen’s Park Oval pitch was a challenge, the batsmen should have done better.

“I think we did not apply ourselves much on it. It was a difficult pitch to start on.

“At the end of the day I have to put it down to poor batting because we should have done better than that,” Bennett told the Jamaica Observer yesterday at Sabina Park.

The Jamaicans, who won all three preliminary round matches to progress to the last four, were bowled out for a record-low regional score of 49 as T&T’s quicker bowlers made merry on a seamer-friendly surface.

Trinidad & Tobago won by a commanding seven-wicket margin, despite pacer Jerome Taylor snatching three early scalps.

“In other matches we lost early wickets, but we still managed to score 280-odd and 240-odd and so on. This time we never recovered from it. I think it was a good toss for Trinidad to win. Having said that, after losing four early wickets we should have tried to rebuild that innings which we did not do,” the Jamaica coach added.

During the preliminary phase, Jamaica were able to put decent totals together.

In the opening game against Windward Islands, Jamaica nudged to a 14-run win after tallying 282-5. Andre McCarthy and Tamar Lambert were the batting heroes with 93 and 88, respectively.

In game two against invited team Ireland, they cruised to 166-4 in 29 overs in a successful chase of 161. Young left-handed opener John Campbell made 71.

Nkrumah Bonner was the star with 122 not out in the team’s 243-7 as Guyana were beaten by 10 runs in the final preliminary outing.

In explaining the ignominious nature of the collapse against Trinidad, Bennett said the surfaces got more difficult to bat as the tournament went on, due to wear and tear and limited pitch preparation.

He maintained, however that the batsmen should have risen to the occasion in such a critical match.

“Most [of] the matches were played there ( Queen’s Park) so it was difficult for the groundsmen in terms of the time to prepare the wickets. It seamed around (sideways movement for the bowlers) and there was inconsistent bounce.

“Overall performance, I’d say we did well but it was one bad match and we lost out. But also it’s the business end of the tournament that you have to up your game and we didn’t [do that],” Bennett said.

Barbados won the Super50 title after defeating Trinidad in the final.