The West Indies Women’s team will hope to benefit from two sub-continent tours and an extensive High Performance Camp before the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) 50-over World Cup qualifiers. This is according to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cricket West Indies (CWI) Johnny Grave. Grave made the revelations during a recent social media interview.
“We got a challenging year ahead,” Grave indicated as he provided a map towards the 50-over and T20 World Cup.
“We would certainly be looking to get the team together the latest in January to bring them here to the Coolidge Cricket ground in Antigua,” he added.
According to Grave, newly-appointed head coach, Courtney Walsh, has already begun working with Director of Cricket, Jimmy Adams to get the ball rolling. “We will be looking to have a High Performance Camp with the women early on in the year and we would certainly be looking to have the Regional tournament to give Courtney and the other selectors the opportunity to pick the best squad that would go through to the World Cup Qualifiers,” Grave revealed.
Due to the Novel Coronavirus, the 2020 Regional season was cancelled.
With the Qualifiers set for Sri Lanka, Grave explained that the team could benefit from much needed exposure to sub-continent conditions in the form of two bilateral series.
“We actually have a bilateral tour scheduled with India which would be perfect in terms of playing in sub-continent conditions ahead of those matches in Sri Lanka. We also had an invitation from Bangladesh Women to potentially tour there so we will be looking to have some bilateral tours in sub-continent conditions in preparation for those World Cup Qualifiers,” he pointed out.
With the obvious aim of qualifying for the World Cup, Grave noted that their plans will then turn to 2022 with the 50-over World Cup in New Zealand in February-March followed by the T20 World Cup in South Africa.
Meanwhile, Grave indicated that the inaugural Under-19 Regional Women’s tournament has been cancelled for this year but remains on the cards for 2021 with plans for the team to be a force in the 2023 Women’s Under-19 World Cup.
“I think we are looking to have an Under-19 girls tournament if we can in 2021 and hopefully, that would be part of getting more women and girls involved in the sport and obviously more women and girls involved in the programmes can provide a greater pool of players and more competition for places within the West Indies women’s team,” Grave highlighted.
“We would have [had] in April the inaugural Under-19 Regional Women’s tournament here in the Caribbean which we would have been a real catalyst for the women’s game as a layer underneath that international team and a real sort of flagship tournament for our youth programmes that take part throughout the Caribbean so there is now going to be the first ever Under-19 World Cup at the international level that the ICC is going to host and that has been pushed back to January 2023.”
