By Neto Baptiste
Former national and Leeward Islands cricket captain-turned-coach, Wilden “Polo” Cornwall, believes that an all hands on deck mentality is the best approach if we are to harness and nurture the talents of cricketers across Antigua and Barbuda.
Cornwall, who has coached in several professional set-ups to include the Leeward Islands Hurricanes and the Antigua and Barbuda Falcons, said local stakeholders must play a major role in first identifying the talents and then creating a pathway for that talent to grow.
“You start from school, you come to clubs, but I think you need more than just those two. I think the cricket association has to play a big part in it. I mean, we got to see the talents that we have in Antigua. How can we harness that talent? How can we put all these young cricketers and come together and maybe two, three times a week and realize this is something that we have to grow on from now because we got to get these guys coming through,” he said.
“How can we get the best set of coaches around these young cricketers to give them the necessary tools and information they need and what it’s all about to get to play on the international scene? Even in the likes of the league, the franchise league, that is happening because the transition is happening now and we got to get with the time,” he added.
The coach’s comments comes ahead of a planned townhall meeting organized by the Antigua and Barbuda Cricket Association (ABCA) which it hopes will find solutions to a number of issues stagnating grassroots development in the sport.
Cornwall said the fundamentals must first be in place for anything else to work effectively.
“First, we’ve got to get really serious with our structure and what are some of the things we need to implement as coaches; as an organization. We’ve got to get serious because if we want to get the players better, there are a lot of things that need to get right so these are some of the stuff that we can start to challenge. We’re not far off so we’ve just got to dedicate ourselves to the sport that we love and give it the heart,” he said.
Topics like youth cricket, practice facilities and development programmes will be high on the agenda during next Thursday’s meeting while those in attendance will also be able to air their views and ask questions.
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