The Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Acad­e­my will of­fi­cial­ly launch their de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme for the 17 to 23 age group on Sep­tem­ber 17 from 11 am at the Sir Frank Wor­rell De­vel­op­ment Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va. Ter­ri­to­r­i­al De­vel­op­ment Of­fi­cer (TDO) Ku­mar Ram­pat said yes­ter­day that the pro­gramme or­gan­ised by the T&T Crick­et Board will at­tract 20 crick­eters and will run for suc­ces­sive week­ends start­ing in Sep­tem­ber and end in mid-De­cem­ber. He said the ses­sions are planned to en­sure that the in­ductees do not feel im­pris­oned in a forced reg­i­men and that the young crick­eters are giv­en enough space and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their own so­cial de­vel­op­ment. The prospec­tive par­tic­i­pants who have been placed on a short­list will be in­ter­viewed with the Crick­et Acad­e­my's Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee be­fore fi­nal se­lec­tion to the pro­gramme which will be held on Sep­tem­ber 17 and 18 and 24 and 25; Oc­to­ber 8 and 9; 14 and 15 and 16; 28, 29 and 30; No­vem­ber 4, 5, 6; 18 and 20; 25, 26 and 27; and De­cem­ber 1 to 4. Ram­pat said the de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme is cost­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly $600,000 and will be staged over 25 days com­pris­ing 240 con­tact hours.

"The mod­ules seek to en­sure all­round play­er de­vel­op­ment and shall in­clude lec­tures on the game of crick­et; me­dia man­age­ment; phys­i­cal prepa­ra­tion and train­ing fun­da­men­tals; crick­et her­itage; dance; time and mon­ey man­age­ment; en­vi­ron­men­tal aware­ness; nu­tri­tion and hy­dra­tion; read­ing and recre­ation; video­tap­ing; com­put­er lit­er­a­cy; and pro­to­col," said Ram­pat. Co-or­di­na­tor of the pro­gramme is na­tion­al Un­der-19 team man­ag­er Roland Sam­path while lec­tur­ers in­clude na­tion­al coach Kelvin Williams; for­mer pu­gna­cious West In­dies open­ing bats­man Gor­don Greenidge; ex-Test and An­tigua fast bowler Ken­ny Ben­jamin, for­mer T&T spin­ner Ra­jen­dra Dhan­raj, ex-fast bowler Tony Gray, and na­tion­al se­lec­tor Alex Burns.

List of In­ductees 2011-2012: Ke­iron Joseph, Derone Davis, Stephen Kat­wa­roo, Sachin Boodram, Idrees Mo­hammed, Emile Ra­jah, Ter­ry Ed­wards, Satish Goolcha­ran, Em­manuel Lett, Akeal Ho­sein, Teshaun Cas­tro, Philton Williams, Jahron Al­fred, Ra­jeev Ma­haraj, Jo­van Ali, Je­re­my Solozano, Varoun Sama­roo, Bran­don Ram­di­al, Nicholas Alex­is, Vikash Mo­han.