By Neto Baptiste
Plans for the development of women’s cricket in the Leeward Islands have been placed on the back burner due to ongoing economic hardships brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
This is according to President of the Leeward Islands Cricket Board (LICB) and former national batsman, Enoch Lewis, who said there is, however, no restrictions placed on those females wanting to join or participate in regular training sessions with the men.
“We didn’t have anything specific in terms of women and I started by saying that we are pretty much running on fumes in terms of financially and so basically, it is a challenge to put a specific programme in place but there isn’t anything that stops any of the women from training with the men and if it is that I didn’t know that Shawnisha had specialised training going on, as I’ve been told, she has a coach she has been working with personally but if that wasn’t the case, I would have gotten further involved to say to her that this is what I think you should do,” he said.
His statement comes on the heels of news that Antigua and Barbuda’s lone international women’s cricketer, Shawnisha Hector, lost her development contract with the Cricket West Indies (CWI) in June this year.
Lewis added that despite the going financial difficulties, the board has found a way to keep its players satisfied.
“As it is right now we have 15 contracted players who we are paying on a reduced basis but we think we have an obligation to keep those guys going and we are stretching as it is right now but we feel that because of our separation, which presents a disadvantage, we have to find a way because if something opens up by way of a competition in the next month we don’t want to be rushing to get guys fit for matches and so on,” he said.
A number of Leeward Island’s players are currently in training in Liberta with assistant coach of the Leeward Islands Hurricanes, Wilden Cornwall.