By Neto Baptiste
Former fast bowler, Sir Curtly Ambrose, has urged Cricket West Indies (CWI) to keep the crop of players currently representing the Emerging Players franchise together.
The fast bowling legend, who claimed 225 wickets in 176 ODI matches, warns that dismantling the team in similar fashion to what was done in the case of the Combined Campuses & Colleges (CCC) could see the current crop of players getting lost in a system that not designed for player development.
“I would suggest that they should keep these players together and keep them in the competition because it is the same competition they are playing. Some of them may go back to their territories and sit on the bench and they won’t be playing any cricket, so I would suggest to keep the emerging players together and apart from the one day tournament; get them in the four-day competition as well,” he said.
Sir Curtly compared the Emerging Players to the CCC team which was disbanded following the 2013-14 Regional Four-Day competition.
“These guys were not selected for their national teams and now they came into the emerging players [team] as a unit and won the championship on their first try, and what makes it so special is that they only got together a very short time before the tournament. We have to give kudos to Floyd Reifer and Kenny Benjamin and Ryan Austin — the coaches, and the players themselves to do that. It tells us that the talent is there and I am quite sure that by next season, some of these players will be called back to their territories,” he said. Emerging Players rallied to a crushing 205-runs victory over Leeward Islands Hurricanes to capture the Colonial Medical Insurance Super50 Cup at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain earlier this month.