WICB to establish two regional

umpires panels, match referee panel
…Six women cricketers to be offered central contracts

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, (CMC) – Two under-appreciated areas in West Indies cricket gained special attention from the directors of the West Indies Cricket Board during their two-day meeting here.

The WICB have established some deliberate policies aimed at the development of women’s cricket in the region, and the improvement of match officials in its competitions.
The WICB will now offer central retainer contracts to six women cricketers geared towards strengthening the core of the West Indies Women’s team.
The number will be increased in future to include a larger number of players, when finances make it possible.
“We want to build a team that will make a determined effort to break into the top four of the next ICC Women’s World Cup in three years’ time in India,” said WICB Chief Executive Officer Ernest Hilaire at a media conference yesterday.
“We believe that we need to have some of our women playing cricket on a full-time basis, and we think we have a core of players that we can build a winning side around.”
West Indies Women left the Caribbean on Saturday bound  for the ICC Women’s World Challenge from October 6 to 16 in South Africa.
The tournament will provide a good challenge to the six teams, as none of them has yet qualified for the World Cup.
As a consequence of the central contracts, the West Indies Women will attend the West Indies High Performance Centre for a specified period in 2011 for training and development of their skills.
The WICB will also increased the number of tours for West Indies Women. In addition to the trip to South Africa, the West Indies Women can expect to tour India in January next year.
“Later next year, we also hope to host a women’s side from one of the full member nations,” said Hilaire. “So our women’s programme will be expanded to ensure they continue on the upward trajectory.”
The WICB has also proposed to establish two regional umpires panels and a matchreferee panel.
“We are all aware of the state of umpiring in the Caribbean, and we have recognised the increasing importance of the matchreferee in the management of the game,” said Hilaire.
It has not disclosed the number of umpires and matchreferees that will constitute the panels, but the umpires on the soon-to-be-established Senior Umpires Panel and the Match Referees will be retained.
The Senior Umpires Panel will mostly include the senior, more established umpires in the region, but about half will be under the age of 40. They will officiate in senior regional tournaments, as well as backstop for international matches.
An Emerging Umpires Panel will include the emerging umpires in the region, and will work all of the WICB’s development tournaments, like the Under-15, Under-17, and Under-19 competitions.
“So the old model of each territory recommending two umpires, or two matchreferees, we will phase this out, and we will have a standing panel of officials that will do all our matches,” said Hilaire.
“In the next two weeks in Jamaica, we will have an entire week of training for the umpires and the matchreferees with the assistance of the International Cricket Council.”
Hilaire also disclosed that a training course for video analysts. Equipment has been sourced for each territorial board, and they have recommended personnel to be trained in this area.
The video analyst is a new role in modern cricket, and provides coaches and players with a statistical breakdown of how each player is performing in the game.
“Each territorial board should have a video analyst that can assist the players and the coaches with using technology to better understand how the game is unfolding, and improve their performance,” said Hilaire.
“This will also assist us in being able to do something that we ought to be doing, which is getting raw data of other international teams and being able to codify it, and store it properly so we can use it for our purposes.
“All other countries have gone that route, but we do not have the trained competence in the region to do so.”

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