The Independent Voice of West Indies Cricket

Making Barbados cricket strong again

Wed, Apr 27, '11

by JOEL GARNER

Barbados

Following is the speech by president of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) Joel Garner at the BCA awards ceremony for 2010 at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre on Saturday night, April 23.

After 15 years of dominance, West Indies cricket found itself in a difficult position as some of the greatest players of all time exited the international stage over a three-year period. Players of the calibre of Sir Vivian Richards, Malcolm Marshall, Gordon Greenidge, Jeffrey Dujon and Desmond Haynes left a void in our cricket that we have not yet filled.



This tremendous loss of resources came after Clive Lloyd and Michael Holding had left a few years earlier. There might have even been some small impact caused by the loss, in 1987, of a trundler by the name of Joel Garner; but that is debatable. Hindsight is 20/20 vision and it is now clear to everyone in the cricketing world that we had not done nearly enough to prepare the replacements for those great players. To compound the matter, the West Indian public had grown to accept nothing less than absolute dominance. So performance declined, criticism increased and we slid to the bottom of the international ladder and have stayed there ever since.

Barbados cricket faced similar challenges. Having dominated regional cricket for as long as I can remember, we lost a number of great players in the early nineties and have since struggled to meet the expectations of our fans. Even though we have had some success during that time, it became clear that a major revamping of our approach to cricket development was necessary. It was clear that replacements for Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes and Malcolm Marshall would not turn up by simply doing what we always did; it was an obvious fact that youngsters did not naturally gravitate to cricket as they did in the past; and it was also clear that the rest of the world had moved forward and the successful countries had production lines from which a stream of well-prepared cricketers flowed.

BCA option

The Barbados Cricket Association had only one sensible option available and that was to move forward with the rest of the world. So we did. In 2005, we hired a consultant who worked with us to produce a 5-year development plan for cricket in Barbados. This plan is driven by a simple clear vision: to make Barbados Cricket strong again. It operates on the premise that you develop a Conrad Hunte or a Wes Hall by a controlled process that takes time. You have to start by getting thousands of youngsters playing the game and exposing them to some basic techniques and principles of playing the game. At the same time you start the process of identifying talent and developing it. So we must acknowledge the excellent role played by the National Sports Council in this process through their work in the primary schools and the Herman Griffith competition. We fully endorse this work and we have conducted courses for coaches at this level so that they are better equipped to assist the primary schools.

This development is accelerated by the BCA coaches who run youth programmes through the clubs to which they are attached.

Young players then move on to under-13 competitions that did not exist in my time at school. They now have an opportunity to compete for places in a Barbados under-13 team, and the National Sports Council has been doing a wonderful job in this age category. Here again, the BCA chose not to re-invent the wheel but, instead, to provide assistance to the NSC to continue their good work.

Everton Weekes Centre of Excellence revamped

This is also the stage at which one of the major planks of our development strategy becomes evident. Through their performances and demonstration of their potential in under-13 competitions boys can earn a place in the Everton Weekes Centre of Excellence. I am pleased to inform you that this programme has now been revamped and will be re-launched in the next few weeks. We will be meeting with parents to share with them our plans and to involve them in the process of developing our young cricketers, not only in terms of technical skills, but also with a strong focus on mental toughness and tactical awareness.

I must commend the work of our Director of Coaching, Henderson Springer; our Cricket Development Committee, headed by our First Vice President, Conde Riley; and our Oversight Committee for the Everton Weekes Centre of Excellence, headed by Board Member, Roland Butcher. Throughout the Centre of Excellence our Director of Coaching insists that there must be five (5) pillars of development: physical, technical, tactical, mental and lifestyle management. To be a successful international cricketer in this modern game you must master all five of them.

The BCA also recognises that cricketing development cannot only take place within a training programme. Players must be drawn from a club structure and must engage in regular competition of a high standard in order to develop their skills and to be able to apply them when it counts most; that is, when they are in the middle.

Our development plan had to take into account the reality of the declining club structure in Barbados. As our young cricketers would say, we had to keep it real. The reality is that club membership was declining, finances were declining, standards were declining and club administration was declining. So the BCA took some bold steps.

BCA clubs given $240,000 per year

We assisted clubs financially by paying umpires on their behalf, to the tune of $240,000 per year. We provided them with balls at a cost of $86,000 per year. We provided first division teams with coaches, and from this year we will be providing Upper Intermediate teams with coaches. These coaches all have WICB level 2 accreditation and are mentored by the full time coaches employed by the BCA, led by our Director of Coaching. We have provided bowling machines for all of the first division clubs.

But our assistance does not end there. Each year, we set aside half million dollars to provide clubs with further assistance to improve their infrastructure and provide much needed equipment, particularly drive mowers. I am pleased to say that clubs from first right through all of the other divisions have taken advantage of this assistance. What we are really doing is creating an environment within the clubs that provides infrastructure, equipment, coaching and improved finances so that a player has all of the elements necessary to develop.

Promotion and relegation

Along the road, we have taken some difficult decisions that met with opposition from clubs and individuals. One of these was promotion and relegation. We understand that it was a culture shock. For the first time, in a competition that has existed for more than a hundred years, teams had to consider the possibility of demotion; but it was clear that the standard of first division cricket had fallen a long way. We believe that this wake-up call has forced teams to make a choice: raise your game or play at a lower level. It has also forced individual players to make the same choice. For too long we have accepted falling standards.

The time has come to put a stake in the sand: to set our standards high and challenge our players to meet those standards.

Code of Conduct for players revised

Ladies and gentlemen, I have been a member of one of the most successful teams of all time and I know that sustained success cannot be achieved if we focus only on technical standards of excellence. Great teams also exhibit great discipline. That is why we introduced a code of conduct for players and officials last year. We have now revised it to bring it more in line with the ICC code of conduct and we will ensure that players and officials abide by it.

Last year we introduced match referees at first division games on a trial basis and this will now be a permanent feature. The BCA will also be assisting clubs in this regard by paying their fees as we already do for umpires. We have already met with the match referees and we have other meetings planned with them and with umpires to ensure that infringements of this code are punished. We will not accept the type of situations that have occurred in the past where match officials claim not to have seen an infringement or failed to make a report. There will also be penalties for that kind of behaviour.

Not worried by state of our cricket

These things that I have outlined so far are only a part of our overall strategy and I will tell more about it shortly; but I will pause here to address the issue of our men’s national cricket team’s performance this year. I have heard a lot of negative comments about the performance of our team this year. Some people are worried about the state of our cricket. I am here to tell you that I am not. This may sound strange after our team finished at the lower end of the pack and failed to make the playoffs, but let me point out a few things.

We are in a mode of ongoing development. Our team is a very young one, with Roston Chase making his debut. Jason Holder, Shane Dowrich and Kyle Hope had only a few first-class games before this season. Kraigg Brathwaite is in his second season at this level. We lost Kirk Edwards to the West Indies team after the second game of the season. We played without Kemar Roach and Sulieman Benn. Fidel Edwards was returning after a long injury layoff. Despite these setbacks we lost only one game in the competition.

On the other hand, the programmes I outlined earlier led to a situation where three of our players were selected for the WICB High Performance Centre. Five of our players have been selected in the West Indies under-19 team currently in Dubai. That team has just won the one-day series against Australia and it is very significant that the Barbadian players made excellent contributions to that victory.

In the regional four-day tournament all of our young players showed their ability through good individual performances, even though their inexperience led to inconsistency and a tendency for the batsmen not to carry on after good starts.

We will continue to work with our players focusing on the mental aspects of the game. However, there are several signs so far that our development programmes are working and I am confident that this young team will take us back to the top of regional cricket. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a Tweny20 game. A cameo innings or a couple of quick wickets will not win it. Our 5-year plan is more like a Test match where you get results by spending time at the crease and bowling consistently for long periods.

With that in mind I want you to understand that we are only in the third year of our strategic plan and that the Board is constantly reviewing and monitoring the state of play. So there is more to come.

Women’s cricket

However, before I move on to the future please do not think that we are neglecting our women’s game. We have almost completed the Iris Walker Memorial Tournament which involves four women’s teams; two prepared by the BCA’s coaches; one from the University of the West Indies; and one made up of players from Coleridge Parry and the Alexandra Schools. Our Women’s Committee has been doing an excellent job of developing the game and even now we can boast of two players currently in the West Indies Women’s team, Deandra Dottin and Shakira Selman. Furthermore, it is with some pride that I am able to say that Deandra Dottin holds the record for the fastest century in an international women’s match. There are three others who recently represented the West Indies and we are confident that they will be back in the team shortly.

Prospects for future exciting

Locally, our prospects for the future are exciting. With eight (8) teenagers having recently represented Barbados, the future is bright. One of these, Shaquana Quintyne, at the age of 15 scored 150 in a Twenty20 game a few weeks ago. We need to widen the base so that many more ladies are playing in the future but we will get there.

The Government of Barbados had long ago allocated lands within the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium complex to be leased by the Barbados Cricket Association. We have already cleared those lands and marked out a playing area and a practice area. The square in the playing area and the practice pitches are almost ready for use. The Board of management of the BCA has put in place a committee to develop further plans for this area and we are moving ahead in an effort to get to the stage where we have a modern facility for preparation of our teams.

Retainer contracts

We are aware, however, that all the facilities in the world will be of limited value if players do not have time to fully utilize them. It is for this reason that we are introducing retainer contracts. We had hoped to have these signed by now but we were forced to move forward carefully on this matter while we sorted out some legal issues. Fortunately, we have now overcome that hurdle and will shortly be offering the contracts to the selected players.

Once this is completed we will re-focus our attention on the clubs by offering assistance in the form of training for club administrators. This will be a critical element to ensure that the clubs are able to maintain themselves and to grow. It is essential that they have the skills to manage the environment within which our future players will continue to develop their competitive skills. In conjunction with this we will train resource persons who will in turn train groundsmen. I don’t have to tell you that the type of cricketers we produce will be affected by the surfaces on which they play. I should also tell you that we have conducted courses for scorers over the past two years and we will continue this process.

From this you will see that our strategy touches every area, every entity and every category of persons involved in Barbados cricket. The results are beginning to show and momentum will increase. For this I have to thank the Members of the Board of Management, who put a lot of hours into this effort to restore our cricketing pride; the secretariat of the BCA for translating these plans into action; all those who are involved in our training programmes; our match referees, umpires and cricket officials; the clubs, who are adapting well to these changes; the Cricket Legends of Barbados who have assisted us along the way and who have offered to become more involved in the future; our sponsors, supporters and friends of the BCA. Most of all I would like to thank the players who are working so hard to reach the goals that we have set.

Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you. We will make Barbados Cricket strong again.

 

* Joel Garner is a former Barbados captain and outstanding West Indies fast bowler, whose first-class career spanned from 1975-88.