A TALENTED group of young West Indian cricketers!
That’s how Toby Radford, director and head coach of the Sagicor West Indies Cricket High Performance Centre, described the first group of 15 of the Caribbean’s promising cricketers.
“There is a lot of talent here. There’s a lot of quality here,” he said after an intense first week for the players, who are based at the 3Ws Oval at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies.
“When you start you don’t always know what to expect. I have been pleasantly surprised with the players we have assembled here.
“It’s a bit like the old days, with big fast bowlers, standing six-foot-six. We also have some very talented batsmen, so we have a lot to work with here in the West Indies,” noted Radford.
“It’s been a full week. We have been doing a lot of videoing – looking at batting techniques, bowling actions and doing fitness assessments, and we also had vision testing.” he said.
“So we are looking to get all that data in and look to see what each player’s specific needs are. All the feedback starts next week when we look at all the data and details and give the players their specific programmes.”
Radford revealed that there had been a few net sessions with the intent of trying to get the players to have a real purpose to what they were doing.
“We want to get into the mentality in the nets that if ‘I’m out, I’m out’. We have been doing that and the players have bought into it. We want the players to value their wickets as if they were playing four-day or five-day cricket,” he said.
“So what I’m trying to do is to make the net sessions as match-like as I can, and the players have responded brilliantly. They are enjoying it.”
According to Radford, during the three-month programme this year and next year, there would be lecturers and sports science staff in a holistic coaching programme.
The Centre will offer group and one-to-one support in technical, physical, psychological, tactical, and lifestyle areas of the game.
“It is imperative that we grasp with both hands this wonderful opportunity to develop all aspects of West Indian cricket, make full use of the high-end equipment, facilities and staff and combine our energy and efforts to take West Indies cricket back to where it belongs,” Radford said.
The 15
Shamarh Brooks, Jason Holder, Shane Dowrich (Barbados); Kyle Corbin, Kevin McClean (Combined Campuses & Colleges); Brandon Bess, Ravindra Chandrika, Veerasammy Permaul (Guyana); Nkrumah Bonner, Andre Creary (Jamaica); Kieran Powell, Devon Thomas (Leeward Islands); Shannon Gabriel (Trinidad and Tobago); Keron Cottoy, Delorn Johnson (Windward Islands).
