THE Essequibo Cricket Board (ECB) invited coaching consultant Keshava Ramphal to conduct a three-day Coaches Development Clinic and High-Performance camp over the weekend.

The aim is to develop a quality pool of coaches to then develop quality players who can challenge for spots in the national teams and ultimately West Indies.

ECB president Deleep Singh is on a mission to transform the county’s image in the sport as they aspire to be a more competitive force, noting that “changes have to be made.”

“We are no longer the Cinderella County, we are no longer the whipping boys of Guyana; we want to establish ourselves among the best in the country and it will take us a lot of hard work and dedication to get us there and we are fast-tracking our course and I am sure with the talent we have, we will hasten that course,” the new ECB president envisioned.

Singh described the upskilling of coaches as one that should happen in all counties and the aim is to have two coaches in each of the area committees, which is the building block to having a coach in each of the clubs in the county.

Level III coach Keshava Ramphal heads the camp and is assisted by fellow Trinidadian Brendon Ramlal and Guyana Harpy Eagles Assistant Coach, Ryan Hercules.

Ramphal, speaking at the opening ceremony, held at the Imam Bacchus Library on Saturday, was resolute in stating, “It is nice to coach, but it is also nice to develop good coaches and that is going to make a significant difference here in the Caribbean.”

His hope for the 21 participants, who are aiming to become Level I certified in the future, is to understand the concepts of coaching when they seek to elevate and have high-performance camps.

Additionally, Hercules urged all the participants to absorb the wealth of knowledge on offer as he underscored, “we need to develop players, how we are going to develop players? We need coaches. We can’t develop 200 players with two or three coaches.”