BRIDGETOWN, Barbados CMC – Leeward Islands captain Steve Liburd says his side’s batting needs to drastically improve if they are to turn around their flailing start to the WICB regional first class season.

Liburd was speaking following the Leewards’ 45-run loss to Trinidad & Tobago in their fourth round match at the Foursquare Oval here on Monday.

“It went wrong in the batting in both innings. We set up the game nicely on the first day after winning the toss and inserting Trinidad,” said Liburd.

“We should have batted a lot better. All season we haven’t been batting good and this is something I think the management staff has to address.”

Set a target of 202 runs to win, Leewards began the final morning in need of 87 runs to win with five wickets in tact, but crumbled to a disappointing 156 all out.

The loss left them sixth in the seven-team standings on 10 points without a win in their three outings.

“We can’t be happy (with our start to the season). We haven’t been batting well, we haven’t been fielding well … the bowlers have been doing a good job but we haven’t been doing a good job in the field and batsmen are not living up to expectations,” the 24-year-old Liburd lamented.

“I must put my hand up. I’m the captain and I should lead from the front but I’m not having a good season and most of the guys are getting in but not carrying on.”

Liburd’s form has been wretched, scraping a paltry 50 runs from just six innings with a highest score of 27.

He said at the start of the day, on Monday, the Leewards had been confident of winning the match but losing quick wickets dashed their hopes.

“The feeling was pretty good because we had two experienced players at the wicket Wilden Cornwall and Omari Banks, two season campaigners. The field was fairly well spread so we should have gotten there (target) comfortably,” he pointed out.

“Losing those three critical wickets (affected) our momentum. As I said before the start of this game, momentum is very key especially in this first class cricket and we lost momentum there.”