分类： sports

Following a demoralizing 140-run defeat to Trinidad and Tobago Red Force in the West Indies Championship playoff at Antigua’s Coolidge Cricket Ground this Wednesday, Barbados Pride head coach Vasbert Drakes has made a clear push for generational change in the regional cricket side, arguing that talented young prospects deserve their chance to compete at the highest domestic level.

While Drakes acknowledged that the team’s overall 4-day tournament campaign delivered several positive highlights that deserve praise — including standout individual performances from batter Kevin Wickham, who racked up 393 runs to finish as the competition’s second-highest run-scorer, and bowler Joshua Bishop, whose 16 wickets put him in a tie for third place in the tournament wicket-taking charts — he says he is now actively evaluating fringe domestic players for potential call-ups.

The push for youth inclusion comes at a timely moment: two promising young Barbadian batters, Rivaldo Clarke and Amari Goodridge, notched their maiden first-class centuries on the very same Wednesday the playoff concluded, during a warm-up fixture against Guyana Harpy Eagles while representing the Barbados High Performance Center.

Speaking to reporters Thursday at Grantley Adams International Airport shortly after the team returned home from Antigua, Drakes hinted at significant roster adjustments ahead of the next competition, even as he praised the core squad’s efforts through the main tournament. “I was happy with what the team exhibited across the competition, but we have these young Barbadian players who scored hundreds for the High Performance Center, and that is absolutely something we have to take seriously,” Drakes explained. “Once our top senior players are available for the next cycle, we still have to make sure these prospects are part of the setup moving forward.”

Drakes added that senior players in the current squad have already accepted the need for a deliberate transition plan, noting that candid conversations about the team’s current state and the long-term best interests of Barbados cricket are already underway. “Even the senior lads understand we have to find a path forward for the next generation, so we’re going to have those hard talks about where we stand and what we need to do,” he said.

Breaking down the team’s poor showing in the playoff against Trinidad and Tobago, Drakes pointed to the opposition’s first innings total as a decisive turning point in the match. Despite acknowledging that the team entered the fixture well-prepared for both the conditions and Trinidad’s batting lineup, he admitted the side failed to execute its game plan when it mattered most. “We were playing catch-up from early on, but even with that, the pitch was pretty flat, I think Trinidad ended up with around 30 more runs than they should have in that first dig,” Drakes said.

He reflected on a near-miss that could have flipped the game’s momentum: Bishop’s outstanding unbeaten knock of 99. If just one more batter had matched that level of contribution, Drakes argued, the side would have gained the control it needed to compete for the win. He added that while Trinidad benefited from familiarity with the Antigua conditions after playing their full tournament on the island, that was no excuse for Barbados’ collective underperformance with the bat. “We had scored heavily in Jamaica earlier, so we knew we could perform here. There’s no question we should have put up a bigger total as a group,” he said.

When asked about persistent concerns over a lack of intimidating pace in the Barbados bowling attack, Drakes agreed that the gap is a critical issue that requires urgent attention. He pointed to a telling moment in the match: Trinidad’s number 11 batter, fast bowler Jayden Seales, batted for 15 full overs to shore up the innings with no significant pressure from the Barbados attack. “You want your fast bowlers to be able to put a little fear into the tail-end batters, and that makes all the difference in a tight game. Unfortunately, we just didn’t have that cutting edge this match,” Drakes said. “It’s an area we definitely need to invest time and resources into filling moving forward.”

Barbados now boasts a brand-new cricket development hub, after the Noel Gittens and Ezra Moseley Cricket Development Facility was formally opened at St Michael School on Martindale’s Road this week. The new center, which features dedicated professional-grade cricket nets, was delivered through a collaborative partnership between the school and the Barbados Public Workers Cooperative Credit Union’s Legacy Foundation, which provided key funding and support for the project.

The facility carries the names of two icons who left indelible marks on both the school and Barbadian cricket at large: Noel Gittens, a former deputy principal and long-time cricket coach at St Michael School, who joined Principal Tanya Harding to cut the ribbon on the new space, and the late Ezra Moseley, a former fast bowler for Barbados and the West Indies who also served as a coach at the institution.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Principal Harding framed the new facility as a timely, transformative addition to the school, noting that physical education holds a core place in the national education curriculum for its far-reaching benefits. Beyond building physical fitness and supporting mental well-being, regular physical activity in youth helps reduce the risk of chronic non-communicable diseases that impact quality of life in adulthood, she explained.

Harding added that St Michael School has prioritized student participation in extracurricular programs for decades, with 27 distinct after-school activities currently on offer, nine of which focus on sports. But for years, the school has struggled to accommodate its growing student body and diverse athletic programs due to severe space constraints. The campus currently only has one hard court, one tennis court, and a small playing field that was further reduced in size when prefabricated buildings were added to expand capacity for sixth-form students. At their lowest point, the school’s cricket team was forced to travel off-campus once a week to practice at the Ursuline Convent’s nets, Harding revealed.

Winslow Straker, representing the St Michael School Alumni Association, which spearheaded the initiative alongside the credit union, emphasized that the new facility is far more than a set of practice nets—it is a strategic investment in Barbados’ young people, local communities, and the future of national cricket. The facility’s dual practice wickets, he said, stand as a tangible symbol of opportunity, a dedicated space where emerging young cricketers can hone their technical skills, build personal discipline, grow their self-confidence, and nurture a lifelong passion for the sport.

Straker noted that naming the center for Gittens and Moseley is a fitting tribute to the pair’s decades of dedicated service to the school and regional cricket. Their legacies of commitment will now inspire every generation of young players that trains at the facility, motivating them to pursue their dreams of representing their school, club, and country with national pride, he added.

Reflecting on the cross-sector collaboration that made the project possible, Straker emphasized that a true legacy is not just about honoring the contributions of past leaders, but about building accessible pathways for the next generation to thrive. Partnerships between educational institutions, alumni groups, and local corporate foundations, he argued, demonstrate what can be accomplished when organizations align around a shared vision of youth and community development. He closed by extending the alumni association’s sincere gratitude to the Legacy Foundation for its generous financial donation and collaborative partnership, noting that the organization’s commitment to youth cricket and community uplift has made a lasting difference for St Michael School, with hopes for continued partnership in future impact projects.

West Indies cricket, once a powerhouse of the global game that dominated international competition for decades, finds itself mired in a deepening crisis that threatens its long-term survival, according to former St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves. In a candid interview with the Jamaica Observer, the 24-year incumbent leader, who stepped down after last November’s general election, has issued a urgent call for Caribbean regional governments to claim a formal, integrated seat at the decision-making table to reverse the sport’s steady decline.

Worsening on-field performance and crippling financial instability have combined to paint a grim picture for West Indies cricket in recent years. While fan and stakeholder anxiety over the sport’s trajectory has simmered for decades, public and institutional scrutiny spiked dramatically over the last 12 months following a humiliating Test series defeat to Australia last summer. The low point of that series came at Kingston’s Sabina Park, where the entire West Indies batting line-up was bowled out for just 27 runs — a result that sent shockwaves through the global cricket community. Current International Cricket Council (ICC) rankings reflect the depth of the on-field slump: the regional men’s side sits 8th in Test cricket, 10th in One-Day Internationals, and 7th in Twenty20 Internationals, placing it firmly in the bottom half of all ranked ICC member nations.

Off the field, the financial outlook is equally troubling. Cricket West Indies (CWI), the sport’s regional governing body, projects it will post a $26 million USD loss in the current year, though it has outlined a long-term forecast that predicts a return to profitability by 2027. Gonsalves argues that CWI’s current governing structure — which excludes formal government input — is ill-equipped to tackle these overlapping crises. He insists that closer collaboration between CWI and regional governments is the only path to meaningful reform, noting that governments are unwilling to commit public funding to the sport without receiving proportional decision-making power in return.

“The governments have to get involved but the governments are not going to get involved seriously if Cricket West Indies continues to think that governments will pour money into Cricket West Indies without them having a say,” Gonsalves told the Jamaica Observer. Though the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) maintains a cricket subcommittee, once chaired by Gonsalves himself, the regional body holds no formal governing authority within CWI. ICC rules currently prohibit direct government interference in the administration of member organizations, but Gonsalves argues that the historic and cultural importance of cricket to the Caribbean demands an exception to this regulation.

He pointed to precedents in other major cricket nations to back his argument, noting that the Indian Supreme Court has already ruled that cricket is a public good that cannot be managed exclusively by private entities. “I’m sure if it comes to our courts that they will rule similarly because it makes perfect sense,” Gonsalves said. “The law is right reason and right reason indicates that you can’t have a public good of this type being run by a private entity and certainly you can’t expect the parliaments to vote money to put it inside the organisation. I’ve thought long and hard about this thing and I dare anybody to tell me that my conclusions are not correct.”

Gonsalves’ proposed path forward calls for regional leaders to collectively approach the ICC with a formal diplomatic demarche, laying out the severity of the crisis and requesting approval for expanded government involvement in restructuring and managing West Indies cricket. “If this matter is discussed within the context of the region and governments decide this is the way we’re going to do it and we want to play a part in the management of it and to restructure it, we have to make a demarche to the ICC and say this thing cannot continue like this, because if it continues like this, it would fold,” he explained. “So I don’t think it’s a question of trust, it’s whether we as governments in the region decide whether we’re going to be involved in this matter, and in order to comply with the perspectives of the ICC, where are the tolerable limits for the state’s involvement because we are in a crisis.”

The West Indies men’s team is set to return to international competition next month, hosting Sri Lanka for three ODIs and three T20Is at Sabina Park, the same ground that hosted the devastating 27 all-out collapse against Australia last year. The upcoming series will put the team’s current form under the microscope once again, as calls for structural reform continue to grow across the region.