LON­DON–Cel­e­brat­ed for­mer West In­dies cap­tain Dar­ren Sam­my says he wants to be part of a de­vel­op­ment thrust that sees more in­ter­na­tion­al crick­eters emerg­ing from his home­land St Lu­cia.

The two-time Twen­ty20 World Cup-win­ning skip­per said with the likes of John­son Charles, Garey Math­urin and him­self hav­ing rep­re­sent­ed West In­dies in re­cent years, it was im­por­tant to groom a new gen­er­a­tion of play­ers from the is­land.

"Crick­et is the one thing that has been a unit­ing force in the Caribbean and over the years with my­self and John­son Charles and Garey Math­urin get­ting to make it at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el, it has cre­at­ed much more in­ter­est," Sam­my said here at a Caribbean Pre­mier League event to an­nounce the new own­ers of the St Lu­cia Zouks fran­chise.

"Crick­et is still the num­ber one sport in St Lu­cia and with the prop­er plan­ning and the right peo­ple com­ing on board we could even fur­ther de­vel­op more young crick­eters.

"My dream is that the next [five or 10 years] that we have more West In­dies crick­eters com­ing from St Lu­cia and to keep the lega­cy go­ing." Sam­my made his­to­ry by be­com­ing the first play­er from St Lu­cia to play in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et, go­ing on to cap­tain West In­dies in all three for­mats.

Last April, he had a hand in an­oth­er piece of his­to­ry as he led the Caribbean side to an un­prece­dent­ed sec­ond Twen­ty20 World Cup tri­umph in In­dia. Sam­my, who al­so skip­pers Zouks, be­lieves the CPL tour­na­ment can play a ma­jor role in help­ing to de­vel­op lo­cal crick­eters.

"Who­ev­er comes and in­vests [in Zouks], CPL has it manda­to­ry that there must be a few Un­der-19 guys in the sys­tem and al­so some­one from the Amer­i­c­as as well, so it's all about de­vel­op­ing," he said.

"Last year we had (Mike) Hussey, Shane Wat­son, Grant El­liott and these guys are true pro­fes­sion­als and if you have Hussey in the dress­ing room, it makes Stu­art's (coach Stu­art Williams) life very easy be­cause the knowl­edge he has, any young­ster com­ing in­to that dress­ing room mix­ing with such cal­i­bre of play­ers will want to learn.

"I learnt a lot as cap­tain as a play­er so it's all about putting that pack­age out there, that brand which will at­tract the in­ter­na­tion­als but will al­so de­vel­op the young­sters and cre­ate that in­ter­est in the Caribbean."

On Thurs­day, CPL or­gan­is­ers an­nounced that Unit­ed States-busi­ness­man Jig­nesh 'Jay' Pandya, had pur­chased the Zouks fran­chise.

Pandya is the founder of re­al es­tate ven­ture, Ro­han Group of com­pa­nies, and serves as chair­man of Glob­al Sports Ven­tures and Roy­al Sports Club.

CMC