JAMAICA Scorpions Captain Brandon King says weaknesses in the bowling and batting departments were exposed in the two-wicket victory over West Indies Academy during the regional first-class cricket match at Sabina Park last week.

The Scorpions, who won the toss and chose to bowl first, made scores of 372 and 236-8 in reply to the youthful academy team’s 324 and 281.

The 29-year-old King, playing his first four-day match this season, led from the front with instrumental knocks of 77 and 65.

While relieved to claim victory — only the Scorpions’ second in four outings — King, who replaced under-pressure Jermaine Blackwood as skipper, said better bowling execution would have left them with a smaller target to chase on a wearing, final-day pitch.

“I told the guys before the game that no win for us will be easy; we have to fight for everything. We are trying to create a habit of winning, and it’s not going to come easy [but] this is one step in the right direction,” he told journalists during a post-match interview on Saturday.

“We need to improve in both aspects, bowling and batting,” King, who plays white-ball cricket for West Indies, said.

“The pitch was more suited for spinners — and you saw how they bowled to us — [but] I think it’s just the consistency that we were lacking. Probably we would have chased a smaller total if we had bowled a little bit better.”

When West Indies Academy batted, the 23-year-old Barbadian Kadeem Alleyne had aggressive knocks of 52 in each innings. Alleyne’s compatriot Joshua Dorne, at only 17 years old, top-scored with 83 on debut in the first innings while 18-year-old Jamaican left-hander Jordan Johnson added 61.

The academy team’s 20-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman Carlon Bowen-Tuckett made a top score of 53 in the second innings.

For the first time this season the Scorpions played three specialist slow bowlers — Peat Salmon, Abhijai Mansingh and Jeavor Royal — and all produced threatening moments, especially as the pitch started to wear, but as a unit they lacked consistency.

Mansingh, the 26-year-old wrist spinner, conceded five runs per over in the second innings but he had the most wickets for the Scorpions with a match haul of 6-139.

Off-spinner Salmon, 31, the team’s leading wicket-taker this season, claimed four victims in the match. Left-arm finger spinner Royal, 25, playing his first game of the campaign, was underwhelming. He claimed one wicket in each innings.

The Scorpions batsmen struggled with shot selection throughout the contest while the West Indies Academy pair of 23-year-old left-arm spinner Joshua Bishop and Ashmead Nedd bowled with skill and metronomic accuracy.

Salmon top-scored in the Scorpions’ first innings with 81, while King and Leroy Lugg (64) also contributed half-centuries.

In the second innings King’s classy, pivotal knock was complemented by 47 from West Indies Test left-hander Kirk McKenzie and Abhijai Mansingh (42). Notably, Derval Green (20) and Royal (18) added an unbeaten 28 for the ninth wicket to seal the win.

Out-of-favour West Indies Test player Blackwood, one of the Scorpions’ marquee batsmen, endured another forgettable outing this season with scores of 0 and 27.

The Barbadian Bishop was outstanding for West Indies Academy with career-best match figures of 10-175 while the Guyanese Nedd bowled far better than his four-wicket haul suggests.

The Scorpions captain said the batsmen lacked the patience required against the academy team’s pinpoint bowling.

At the end of Thursday’s second day, when the Scorpions sneaked ahead on first innings, King said the batsmen have to apply greater discipline to their craft.

“That’s obviously something we have to work on. It happened in previous games as well — guys getting starts and then getting out [tamely],” he said.

In the post-match wrap on Saturday, King, who has expressed an interest in playing Test cricket, took responsibility after he was twice dismissed nonchalantly trying to force the issue when he looked a class apart in both innings.

“It’s a lapse in concentration, I won’t hide from that. It’s something I have to look back on and improve on — it’s always a work in progress,” he explained.

The Scorpions, who are third in the eight-team table with 50.2 points, are to face second-placed Leeward Islands Hurricanes (64.2) in the fifth-round match at Sabina Park, set to start this morning.

Windward Islands Volcanoes lead with 67.4 points while Barbados Pride (48.2) are fourth. The lower half of the table comprises Trinidad & Tobago Red Force (47.2 points), title holders Guyana Harpy Eagles (46.2), West Indies Academy (30.8), and Combined Campuses and Colleges (19.8).