By Tony Becca - On The Boundary 
JAMAICA'S preparation for next year's regional four-day tournament is now in high gear, the players in the squad are going through a series of four matches after which a 16-man squad will be selected, and although they are now called practice matches and not trial matches, performance in them is important to the players.
Performance in these matches is important to the players for the simple reason that regardless of what they are called, the players, but for those who are "sure" picks, know that selection will depend on how well they perform in them.
In fact, they are also important to those who are sure to play - particularly the batsmen who would love to have some runs under their belts before the action starts on January 31.
After two matches, however, the batsmen have been finding it difficult to score runs, and there are two reasons for that. One is the poor pitches on which they have been asked to play, the other is the poor standard of umpiring.
Although the pitches have been so poorly prepared that the bounce of the ball has been unpredictable - very unpredictable, the real disappointment has been the standard of the umpiring; and it has been so simply because it does not have to be so - not with so many first-class umpires around.
It has been so, however, for one reason.
Although there are no other matches being played at this time of the year, the umpires association has not been using the best umpires. Instead of using the country's top umpires for these matches, instead of calling on any two from Norman Malcolm, Thomas Wilson, Cecil Fletcher, Vivian Johnson, Melvin Noble, Leo daCosta and Maurice Chung, the association has been sending out less qualified umpires to officiate and whatever the reason, that is not good.
It is not good for two reasons - because the top umpires themselves need to be active in order to be on the ball during the regional tournament, because a trial match, or whatever it is called, is important to the players, and although they too can make mistakes, because the fate of the batsmen should be in the hands of the best.
It is also not good for one other reason. A part of good batting, for example, and especially on bad pitches, is knowing when to play and when not to play. Faced with poor umpires, batsmen become indecisive because they are not confident to do what that they should do, and that is not good for their development.
Fortunately for the players, and especially the batsmen, things should be different in the last two matches.
According to Malcolm, the president of the umpires association who agrees that the top umpires need to be in the middle in preparation for the regional tournament, two of the best will be officiating in each of the remaining two matches.
That is good news for the batsmen - particularly for those like Mario Ventura and Leon Garrick who were among the victims of some poor umpiring during the first two matches.
