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Ian Bradshaw yesterday admitted that Barbados' attack lacked the necessary firing power after Guyana performed the rare feat in attaining a first innings target in excess of 400. "We weren't penetrative enough in our bowling. The pitch was a good one. It was a little bit slow, but I thought we could have been a little bit more penetrative," the new Barbados captain said after the drawn opening Busta match at Kesington Oval.

In the twinkling of an eye, Barbados swiftly lost their seemingly firm advantage after lunch.

Corey Collymore's splendid spell of fast bowling in the morning session in which he uprooted Carl Hooper's off stump with arguably the best ball of the match, appeared to have been the decisive strike in defence of their big target of 422.

Hooper, resuming on 117, was out for his best regional first-class score of 159 and it was Collymore's sixth wicket which reduced Guyana to 391 for eight a few minutes before lunch.

On resumption after the break, there was immediate success with the dismissal of Eion Katchay which left Guyana 23 short of overhauling Barbados.

The hosts needed only to dislodge first-timer Ron Matthews or last man Kevin Darlington, but the Guyanese tail-enders quickly proceeded to wipe off the target in a stand of 37 which was only broken when leg-spinner Dave Marshall came on for his first bowl of the day.

It was difficult to explain what went wrong for Barbados, but the skipper and new coach Hendy Springer also gave Guyana their due recognition for reaching their total of 436.

"When you put tactics together, you don't cater for hard luck or good luck or things like that," Springer said. "The luck went Guyana's way at times and they did well enough to get into that position and deserved to pull through with first innings lead."

Springer described Barbados' overall performance as interesting.

"The bowlers have been suffering from a lack of match practice, but I thought they did exceptionally well," he said.

"What we'll probably have to do is to work on some sharpness in the field to save some of those runs that we gave away and a couple of sharp, missed chances, but I think we are waking up to the fact that we are into a first-class season."

For most of the last two days, there were some who argued that Barbados should have gone into the match with five specialist bowlers, but both Bradshaw and Springer defended the final choice.

In the case of Springer, he felt there was a need to get away from the club mentality.

"In first-class cricket, you have got to be a bit more patient. As far as the responsibility of the bowlers is concerned and the amount of work they had to do, every bowler went out there with a responsibility and knew they would have had to do a lot of work taking into consideration the nature of the pitch," he said.

"I think everybody tried really, really hard, For a lot of them, things did not work out wicket wise, but I think they made their contribution and they know what they are supposed to be doing."

Bradshaw, who went wicketless in 30 overs, made reference to the fact that two of the team's bowlers - Hendy Bryan and Dave Marshall - who were among the leading wicket-takers last season, were not successful in this game.

"When we sat down to pick the team, we obviously felt that we had a team that was good enough to beat Guyana," the captain added.

Bradshaw also responded to queries about why he chose to delay the taking of the new ball until early yesterday morning after 131.1 overs had gone by.

"Late in the afternoon (Sunday), it was an option, but Corey had a little cramp and at that stage he was our most penetrative bowler. With him not being 100 per cent, we waited until the morning to take it," he said.

© The Barbados Nation