Former Windward Islands first-class cricketer, Craig Emmanuel, now lead selector for the sub-regional team, is cautiously optimistic about the new regional T20 competition set to launch in 2025.
The decision by Cricket West Indies (CWI) to launch a new domestic T20 tournament for the first time since 2013 was announced earlier this week by Director of Cricket, Miles Bascombe. The league, geared towards emerging players, will be played in the second quarter of 2025, backed by the Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League (CPL).
“We are targeting April to May 2025,” Bascombe said.
While he said that preparations for the league would go into “high gear”, Emmanuel is pumping the brakes. Although he agrees that the league is “a very good idea,” he is adamant that coaching structures must be put in place to allow young West Indians to thrive in that format and beyond.
“My thing is our cricket has not been based very strongly on proper fundamental and basic skills, technical skills,” noted Emmanuel. “I am thinking the plethora of white-ball cricket that is being played nowadays, it is a bit of a 50-50 for me.
“Yes, it ties very well into the very fluent and volatile way that we play our cricket—you know, six-hitting, enterprising sort of cricket. But I do not think creating so many avenues for our youngsters, guys who are just coming in and trying to hone a cricket career, I do not think that providing them with so much opportunity to actually play the game without a fundamental and a basic technical background – that we all know within the Caribbean we are somewhat lacking – augurs well for our boys going into international cricket.”
Emmanuel said more must be done at the grassroots level across the region to get the most out of up-and-coming young players. He acknowledged, however, that CWI may simply be recognising the growing importance of franchise T20 leagues in the makeup of the global game.
“I look very optimistically to this emerging tournament,” he concluded. “But like I said, I am one who’s always lamented the importance of the fundamentals in the game of cricket, particularly batting. And going forward, I would like to see a bit more investment, a bit more infrastructure put into the developmental facets of West Indies cricket.”
Bascombe has said that the new competition will be televised. Whereas there will be no age restrictions, he indicated that CWI is likely to impose limitations on the participation of more experienced players. The director stated that players with more than 10 T20 internationals to their credit will “definitely” be excluded.
Regional white-ball coach Daren Sammy also made a case for the creation of this new tournament. Several of the players with whom Sammy won two World T20 titles as captain are now retired. He suggested that a bespoke tournament featuring players like Antigua and Barbuda’s Jewel Andrew, Saint Lucia’s Ackeem Auguste, and Barbados’ Kevin Wickham could be just the ticket to help replenish the pipeline.
“It’s important. Since the end of the Caribbean T20, we found a gap in discovering new talent,” said Sammy. “This competition will fill that gap because you have only regional players taking part. So that in itself is additional exposure for the regional coaches, for myself looking at T20 development, especially when you have a World Cup every two years.”
