Director of Cricket at Cricket West Indies (CWI), Miles Bascombe, has reiterated his vision for the growth and development of the sport in the region.
He discussed the proposed way forward for the Men in Maroon during a sit-down interview with two-time World Cup-winning Windies spinner-turned-commentator Samuel Badree.
Bascombe expressed gratitude for the Windies’ marked improvements in certain areas and voiced confidence that this progress will continue into 2025 and beyond.
“It’s good that from time to time, you see a glimpse of some of the things that we want to have happened more consistently. You see a glimpse of progress, if I dare say so. But that definitely helps me to continue fighting the good fight, as they say,” he said.
Bascombe’s role encompasses everything from outfield quality to player and match official development. Following his appointment in June 2023, the former Windward Islands First Class player outlined a clear vision for the style of cricket intended to be employed in the build-up to upcoming international tournaments. This included revamping the points system in the regional 50-over tournament to align the West Indian approach to competition with the standards set by international cricket’s powerhouses.
“The head coach (Daren Sammy) and his analysts looked at what the top teams in international one-day cricket have been doing, how they track across the various stages of the game, the powerplay one, powerplay two, powerplay three, across batting and bowling, and pretty much created a game plan for what we would need to do as a West Indies team to be able to compete with the top teams in the world. And then we created some KPIs [key performance indicators] aligned to those benchmarks and then we created a bonus point system that would be a guide for teams in the Super50 tournament. So the bonus point is an incentive system to allow teams to head in that direction.”
Another key area of transformation is the current method of squad selection.
“What we have done is that we have moved the engine room of the selection back into the territories. Each of these territorial boards will have a selection panel who would have an ongoing scouting process looking for talent within each of their territories. Therefore, between six of those lead selectors, you pretty much have the entire cohort of talent across all territories. I think that that has the potential to really make some changes in terms of how we use information all the way down to players, how we align our brands from the senior teams all the way down to the regional teams,” Bascombe explained.
Bascombe emphasised the importance of creativity and collaboration in overcoming challenges. He expressed optimism about the future of West Indies cricket and the impact of ongoing initiatives.
