Conde Riley wants to keep a good thing going.
The Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) is all on board with the women’s game, having called for each primary school to have two girls on their Herman Griffith team to provide a nursery for the country’s senior side.
Riley said this was all part of a development initiative during yesterday’s celebratory lunch for the women’s Super50 champs at Kensington Oval.
“As we go forward this year we’re about to unveil a cricket development plan from 2018 to 2022 and in that plan we’re going to have a special development system for women’s cricket. We’re looking at women’s cricket with a view to having a holistic development for the game,” Riley revealed.
“I know at present we have about six or seven players on the West Indies team and I also know we have some players on contract with Cricket West Indies, but I would like to see the performances of the ladies in our tournaments continue, so I believe a lot has to be done to get it going.
“As such we’re looking at a programme with the Ministry of Education, where through the Herman Griffith tournament, each primary school has two ladies per school playing in those competitions until we can get probably a base of 400 or 500 young ladies playing cricket,” he added.
Riley’s comments came as part of a congratulatory message to the senior women’s team, who won the regional Super50 title after falling just short as runners-up in the T20 tournament.
It was the third such cup for the star-studded squad, who entered as heavy favourites with West Indies veterans Deandra Dottin, Hayley Matthews, Shakera Selman, Shamilia Connell and Knight twin sisters Kycia and Kyshona.
“I want to give a special thank you to the BCA for investing in the girls. It was a well-fought tournament but unfortunately we did not win the T20 but I thought we had some really good performances,” said Kycia.
“The senior players had some good performances in the 50-over tournament where we were successful and that was good to see. So I just want to thank the BCA for investing in us again and we look forward to that support in the future.” (JM)
