HO­BART, Tas­ma­nia – In a ground­break­ing ini­tia­tive to de­vel­op the next gen­er­a­tion of West In­dies women’s crick­et stars, Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) has launched a new play­er de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme in Tas­ma­nia, Aus­tralia.

Four promis­ing Un­der-25 play­ers — Jan­nil­lea Glas­gow, Cher­ry-Ann Fras­er, Shawnisha Hec­tor, and Kate Wilmott — are cur­rent­ly hon­ing their skills in the re­gion’s pre­mier crick­et com­pe­ti­tion, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in women’s crick­et de­vel­op­ment.

The pro­gramme, con­ceived by West In­dies Women’s Head Coach Shane Deitz and As­sis­tant Coach Damien Wright, has been in­te­grat­ing young tal­ents in­to Tas­ma­nia’s pre­mier first-grade crick­et com­pe­ti­tion.

Glas­gow and Wilmott rep­re­sent New Town Crick­et Club, while Fras­er and Hec­tor rep­re­sent Clarence Crick­et Club. Fras­er al­so ap­peared for Clarence in the men’s third-grade com­pe­ti­tion, while Wilmott took a wick­et for New Town in a match against North Ho­bart.

In New Town’s sev­en-run win over Clarence in a women’s T20 game, Glas­gow scored an un­beat­en 70, while Hec­tor re­mained not out on 66 for Clarence.

The ini­tia­tive al­so pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for these emerg­ing crick­eters to train along­side pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the Women’s Big Bash League (WB­BL) Hur­ri­canes team.

As­sis­tant coach Wright, who is ac­com­pa­ny­ing the play­ers in Ho­bart, was com­pli­men­ta­ry of their ef­forts so far, say­ing,

“This is a won­der­ful ini­tia­tive that com­bines high-per­for­mance train­ing with valu­able match ex­pe­ri­ence. Our play­ers are get­ting ex­ten­sive bat­ting time and tak­ing on lead­er­ship roles, which is cru­cial for their de­vel­op­ment. They’re train­ing four to five times a week, us­ing world-class fa­cil­i­ties and gain­ing ex­po­sure to dif­fer­ent play­ing con­di­tions.”

He added, “It’s been a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for the girls to open the bat­ting and play in the high to mid­dle or­der. They are be­ing called up­on to score runs, face the new ball, and per­form with the ball as well. There are a lot of pos­i­tives, and hope­ful­ly, it can con­tin­ue.”

The com­pre­hen­sive pro­gramme in­cludes bi-week­ly train­ing ses­sions with the WB­BL Ho­bart Hur­ri­canes, reg­u­lar gym work at pre­mier fa­cil­i­ties, in­clud­ing Nin­ja Sta­di­um, for­mer­ly known as Bel­lerive Oval, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in both T20 and 50-over for­mats of the game.

This ini­tia­tive is strate­gi­cal­ly timed, with play­ers prepar­ing for in­ter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments in In­dia this De­cem­ber and a home se­ries against Bangladesh in Jan­u­ary.

Crick­et Tas­ma­nia has played a piv­otal role in fa­cil­i­tat­ing the ini­tia­tive, fur­ther demon­strat­ing Crick­et West In­dies’ com­mit­ment to in­no­v­a­tive play­er de­vel­op­ment and strength­en­ing in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et re­la­tion­ships.

This ini­tia­tive could pave the way for fu­ture de­vel­op­ment and ex­pand op­por­tu­ni­ties for more Caribbean play­ers to gain valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence in Aus­tralian con­di­tions.

(CWI Me­dia)