ST JOHN’S, Antigua (CMC) – Ridley Jacobs said the performance of the Leeward Islands team in recent years was a great disappointment to him.
The former Leewards and West Indies wicketkeeper/batsman said the current players were performing well below expectations.
“To be honest with you, it’s not looking good on the outside and I am quite disappointed because I know the legacy that we left behind,” Jacobs said in an article appearing in the local daily Antigua Observer.
“I thought that after we finished most of these young guys would pick up the mantle and really make us feel proud.
“But it seems the other way around. They are not really performing the way we expect from them and we can only hope that things get better.”
The sub-regional side dominated the Regional 4-day and Super50 competitions between the 1990s and 2003, winning a bagful of titles during the period.
“I honestly think the thought process is No.1,” said Jacobs. “Most of the players, from watching, it doesn’t seem as if they really think the game through. They are thinking in patches.
“Cricket is a hard sport, but I honestly believe playing good cricket is more mental than physical.”
He added: “The way in which you see some of the guys get out, the direction in which they bowl, they are not consistent; they are not thinking the game properly.
“The players that we have now, they have a lot of ability and talent. But just that is not good enough. You really need to think the game throughout to be successful in what you’re doing.”
With the exception of the 2010-11 season in which they shared the Regional Super50 title with Barbados, Leewards have finished in the bottom two teams in every regional WICB domestic competition for the past three years.
Leewards won only one of their four matches in the Caribbean Twenty20 tournament which ended in Barbados on Sunday.