Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, fans of regional cricket were used to a first-class season consisting of each team playing ten games in a home and away format.
Since the return of the West Indies Championship in 2021, the format has been changed drastically.
Now, teams play each other only once, significantly reducing the amount of first-class cricket players around the region are getting to play.
CWI director of cricket, Jimmy Adams, is aware of the concerns raised about the amount of first-class cricket being played in the West indies in comparison to the rest of the world
“The format and structure of the First-Class regional tournament is something that is going to be reviewed coming out of this year,” said the former West Indies batsman.
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For me, this can be achieved by:
1. Adding an Academy or Academy/President's XI team to the FC tournament so that there are 7 teams
2. Keep the Headley/Weekes series and this will comprise Headley and Weekes teams from the best performers and the champion FC team.
3. the annual home and away A tours
In that way, we have layers of FC cricket so by time we reach No. 3 (A tours) we have the cream of the FC players playing up to 12 FC games in a year and all players (subject to selection for their home teams) playing a minimum of 6 games per year.
I would also encourage intra-regional bilateral tours with FC status outside the official FC competition. This can possibly allow the IPL guys to get some FC cricket under their belt in the down season for the professional leagues.
In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com
Jimmy, since you are from Jamaica, let me direct this burning question at you: Do they still play cricket in Jamaica?
In reply to PalsofMine
I would also encourage intra-regional bilateral tours with FC status outside the official FC competition. This can possibly allow the IPL guys to get some FC cricket under their belt in the down season for the professional leagues.
We shouldn't be making any 'special' provision for the IPL guys. There are only a few (mostly aging) around at this point, and the future doesn't look any better.
I would like to see a Caribbean interclub competition
I suggest Josep "Pep" Guardiola manager and former player, who is the current manager of Premier League club Manchester City.--- oops – he is a soccer coach, ---- well you get the jest… anyway someone who can assemble a group of disparate young men and get them to work as a team committed to carrying out the a priori philosophy of their leader
In reply to XDFIX
not a bad idea at all. Probably workable at a T20 level to start with. I would like to see a proper T20 competition to identify players with potential rather than the CPL. We need to go back to the Stanford format of island teams for our local T20 competition even if it means that for expenditure sake, we have to divide the region into say 4 groups with JA, Bim, TT and Guy seeded in separate groups and the group winners then play the finals. There may be a lot of talented players throughout the region who do not want to play redball cricket but may be happy to play only T20 cricket and they should be exposed.
