His­to­ry will be made at the 2024 West In­dies Women’s re­gion­al crick­et tour­na­ment in St. Kitts and Nevis when the win­ners of the re­spec­tive com­pe­ti­tions will re­ceive cash prizes.

The CG Su­per 50 Cup win­ner will re­ceive US$20,000.00, and the run­ners-up will re­ceive US$10,000.00. The win­ner of the T20 Blaze will re­ceive US$ 10,000.00, and the run­ners-up will re­ceive US$5000.00. The prize mon­ey for both tour­na­ments is ex­pect­ed to in­crease over the next four years.

The in­tro­duc­tion of prize monies for the women’s re­gion­al tour­na­ment was an­nounced in Oc­to­ber 2023 as part of CWI’s US$2.5 mil­lion in prize mon­ey and bonus­es over a 4-year cy­cle. In mak­ing the an­nounce­ment, CWI Pres­i­dent Dr Kishore Shal­low said:

“The aim is to in­cen­tivize our crick­eters, which will ul­ti­mate­ly re­sult in more in­tense and com­pet­i­tive crick­et. We ex­pect this along with oth­er de­vel­op­men­tal pro­grams will help to close the gap be­tween in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et and our re­gion­al tour­na­ments. These new prize monies rep­re­sent a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in the re­ward purse for teams in re­gion­al crick­et. We firm­ly be­lieve this will act as a fil­lip to play­ers’ per­for­mances and their pur­suit of ex­cel­lence. This is part of our in­vest­ment in the game and those who fly the flag on the field.”

Since win­ning the ICC T20 Women’s World Cup, the re­gion­al team’s per­for­mance has plum­met­ed in both T20 and ODIs. The WI is ranked 6th in both T20 and ODI in the ICC rank­ings. Cap­tain Hay­ley Matthews is suc­cess­ful­ly fly­ing the West In­dies flag in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, hav­ing been named ICC T20 play­er of 2023, is the num­ber 1 ranked T20 all-rounder, and num­ber 3 among the ICC ODI all-rounders. Matthews is the on­ly WI play­er ranked in the top 10 ICC T20 bat­ters [4th] and bowlers [8th] and is ranked 16th in bat­ting and 6th in bowl­ing among the top-ranked ICC ODI play­ers.

There­fore, any­one who has a good un­der­stand­ing of the glob­al evo­lu­tion of women’s crick­et over the last 5-10 years com­pared to what has been seen as ‘de­vel­op­ment’ in the West In­dies will state un­equiv­o­cal­ly that with­out a much-need­ed strate­gic de­vel­op­ment in­ter­ven­tion plan, the gap be­tween the re­gion­al team and the top coun­tries [Aus­tralia, Eng­land, In­dia, South Africa, and New Zealand] would widen.

At the same time, the gap be­tween the WI and the rest of the coun­tries [Sri Lan­ka, Pak­istan Bangladesh, and Ire­land] would be­come nar­row as these coun­tries have be­gun to in­vest strate­gi­cal­ly to raise their stan­dards as well as look af­ter the in­ter­est of their play­ers.

Since be­ing elect­ed Pres­i­dent of CWI in March 2023, the Shal­low ad­min­is­tra­tion has be­gun to ad­dress the much-need­ed strate­gic de­vel­op­ment through age group de­vel­op­ment [U19] and im­ple­ment­ing fi­nan­cial and sup­port­ing mea­sures for play­ers who can hone their skills with some de­gree of ac­cept­able com­fort. While at the mo­ment the changes may not be on par with their coun­ter­parts in Aus­tralia, Eng­land, and In­dia, every­thing has to be put in­to con­text as these boards are in bet­ter fi­nan­cial po­si­tions. What is es­sen­tial, how­ev­er, is the start.

Some of the sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­men­tal high­lights in just un­der one year of the Shal­low ad­min­is­tra­tion are:

• ↓The in­tro­duc­tion of prize monies for the win­ners of the 2024 CG Su­per50 Cup [US$20,000] and T20 Blaze [US$10,000]

• ↓An in­crease in match fees for every play­er by 158% in 2024 over the 2018 match fees [when it was first in­tro­duced] for the CG Su­per50 and T20 Blaze.

• ↓A 100% in­crease in con­tracts from 15 to 30. Fif­teen De­vel­op­ment con­tracts were is­sued in 2023 to al­low play­ers to fo­cus on their crick­et while be­ing com­pen­sat­ed.

• ↓In May 2023, it was an­nounced that: “With im­me­di­ate ef­fect, the mem­bers of the West In­dies Women’s squad will trav­el busi­ness-class for all long-haul in­ter­na­tion­al flights and be ac­com­mo­dat­ed in sin­gle rooms for all in­ter­na­tion­al as­sign­ments, bring­ing it in line with the pol­i­cy for West In­dies Se­nior Men’s tours.”

• ↓In Oc­to­ber 2023, the in­au­gur­al Women’s Crick­et Acad­e­my was launched in An­tigua. Ac­cord­ing to the Di­rec­tor of WI Crick­et, “Our in­vest­ment in tal­ent de­vel­op­ment and coach­ing will cre­ate a ro­bust foun­da­tion for the fu­ture suc­cess of our women crick­eters. Our ap­proach is to in­cre­men­tal­ly seek to lev­el the play­ing field, and we have start­ed this process in earnest in oth­er key ar­eas.”

• ↓The Women’s Crick­et Trans­for­ma­tion Com­mit­tee is re­spon­si­ble for “rec­om­mend­ing strate­gies geared to­wards in­creas­ing the in­ter­est and par­tic­i­pa­tion of women and girls in the sport, as well as propos­ing crick­et com­pe­ti­tions, events, and path­ways that fos­ter com­pet­i­tive women’s and girls’ crick­et.”

• ↓The es­tab­lish­ment of A team tours start­ed with a tour to Pak­istan in Oc­to­ber 2023, where sev­er­al fringe play­ers were se­lect­ed to show­case their skills.

• ↓Aus­tralian Shane Deitz was ap­point­ed se­nior women’s team coach in Ju­ly 2023.

Since the strate­gic de­vel­op­ment of women’s crick­et start­ed very late [WICB had an­nounced the in­te­gra­tion of women’s crick­et in 2006, fol­low­ing the merg­er be­tween ICC and IW­CC in 2005] com­pared to oth­er coun­tries]:

• ↓Each ter­ri­to­ry must de­vel­op a cadre of U15 play­ers sim­i­lar to the boy’s pro­gramme, cul­mi­nat­ing in a re­gion­al U15 tour­na­ment for girls. The top play­ers can be­come part of the Women’s Crick­et Acad­e­my, which widens and strength­ens the pool of skilled and com­pet­i­tive play­ers who can feed in­to the U19 pro­gram.

• ↓Like oth­er boards [for ex­am­ple, Aus­tralia, New Zealand, and Pak­istan], the CWI must de­vel­op a ma­ter­ni­ty pol­i­cy and pro­duce sup­port mea­sures. Play­ers must not see preg­nan­cy as a de­ter­rent or the end of their ca­reer.

• ↓With the em­pha­sis on youth de­vel­op­ment, if it has yet to be­come a pol­i­cy or is in the mak­ing, CWI should dis­cuss with CXC how play­ers can at­tempt camps, tours, etc., with­out fear of miss­ing out on their aca­d­e­mics. This arrange­ment will go a long way to­ward over­com­ing a cul­tur­al con­cern of par­ents who be­lieve their fe­male chil­dren can­not do sports and aca­d­e­mics.

• ↓De­vel­op a work­ing team of na­tion­al coach­es head­ed by the se­nior coach. The ra­tio­nale is for the com­mon­al­i­ty of ap­proach­es and out­comes. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, there will be a smooth tran­si­tion from na­tion­al to re­gion­al se­tups and vice ver­sa.

There is no doubt that women’s crick­et has been placed on the front burn­er of Shal­low’s ad­min­is­tra­tion in the first year of his lead­er­ship which is ap­plaud­able when com­pared to past ad­min­is­tra­tions who did not trans­late their com­mit­ment [if any] in­to any tan­gi­ble sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment. How­ev­er, as the West In­dies play de­vel­op­men­tal catch-up, the min­i­mum ex­pec­ta­tion is for a West In­dies brand to be in­ter­na­tion­al­ly com­pet­i­tive, es­pe­cial­ly against the top five coun­tries.