Vin­ode Mam­chan

Pres­i­dent of the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB), Dave Cameron is call­ing on the re­gion­al gov­ern­ments to as­sist the board in de­vel­op­ing acad­e­mies to en­sure the fu­ture is good for West In­di­an crick­et.

While mem­bers of CARI­COM have stat­ed that they would like to see the cur­rent WICB dis­solved, the pres­i­dent is say­ing that they have a plan for the de­vel­op­ment of West In­dies crick­et which is work­ing but they need fi­nan­cial sup­port from the re­gion­al gov­ern­ments to take things for­ward.

Cameron said :"The WICB has put in place a fran­chise sys­tem that will cap­ture the best play­ers. The next step is to build our acad­e­mies with­in those fran­chis­es, but we need gov­ern­ment sup­port to make this a re­al­i­ty."

The WICB's start­ed the fran­chise sys­tem two years ago and ac­cord­ing to Cameron it is al­ready pay­ing off. "Here we have a sit­u­a­tion that in­stead of 15 play­ers re­tained, we have an­oth­er 90 at the ter­ri­to­r­i­al lev­el who are com­ing through the fran­chise sys­tem. We are hap­py to see this de­vel­op­ment tak­ing place at the fran­chise lev­el but we need to take it fur­ther."

The WICB has fund­ed the fran­chise sys­tem for the past two years and will be do­ing it for an­oth­er year. The mon­ey came from the new pay struc­ture giv­en to the se­nior play­ers, as well as oth­er cut backs. Af­ter the ini­tial three years, the fran­chis­es will be on their own and they would have to find ways of at­tract­ing in­vestors.

Cameron said the fran­chise sys­tem has worked to im­prov­ing the play­ers and he thinks that 2017, the West In­dies will have a Test team of which all can be proud. "I have said that 2017 is the year when we will have a Test Team to be proud of. I would like to see our best play­ers play in our PCL, play CPL and those who can get a coun­ty con­tract in the Unit­ed King­dom so be it, and we have an 'A' team tour lat­er this year.

"Our PCL sea­son be­gins in No­vem­ber and we would be ready to de­ter­mine those best fit to take us for­ward. We need to make sure that the play­ers will last and that they are best suit­ed when they are in­tro­duced. Think longer term."

The cur­rent PCL sea­son en­ters its eight round this week­end with match­es across the Caribbean.