Head coach of the T&T Cricket Board (TTCB) Academy David Williams says the game in this country is in good hands after working with the current group of inductees at the Bmobile National Cricket Academy in Couva.
Williams, a former West Indies wicketkeeper, together with former national all-rounder Kelvin Williams, have been the men taking charge of the future of T&T’s cricket by working with youngsters between the ages 15 to 18 at the camp.
At the moment, they are working with the nation’s cream of the crop in that age category.
Williams is optimistic after seeing the youngsters they had during this latest development period.
“I am happy with what I am seeing at the moment. We have a good group of players at the academy and what is different this year is that we have a number of young guys. We have guys as young as 15 in the camp and they go up to age 18. We think that this is a critical age group and we are working closely with them in terms of their development,” Williams told Guardian Media on Sunday.
“The future looks good as these are some really talented players we’ve got here. It is now all about their work ethic and for us to continue academies like this. We want to thank Bmobile for making this a reality and this will go a very long way in ensuring that our cricket is in a good place.”
Williams added that the academy was not only one for cricket on the field of play.
“We are interested in the holistic development of the players and hence we have been having a lot of lectures for them in addition to cricket coaching. We had Mr Ali (Reza Abbas Ali) come in and gave a wonderful lecture on the history of West Indies cricket, which is so crucial for these boys to know. We know that these days there is not much reading up about the history of cricket, so we want to introduce the guys to this with the hope that they can understand from where we came from.”
There have also been a number lectures conducted on etiquette and financial planning among other aspects of development.
The academy still has three weeks to go before it ends and there will be the graduation of the 2019 class, on December 28 at a gala function at the TTCB’s headquarters in Couva.