PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP):
ACKNOWLEDGING there are problems with key players and emerging talent, the board of the once-indomitable West Indies is looking to set them up with remedial training.
"The proposal from the senior selectors is that we should look at the 17 players for specific purposes -- bring them together in one place and work on them," Michael Seepersad, chief cricket development officer with the West Indies Cricket Board, told reporters Tuesday.
Details have yet to be worked out but he said training for the team, currently losing against the touring Australians, would take place at the Caribbean's Shell Academy in Grenada before or after its latest terms ends August 7.
Captain and star batsman Brian Lara has said that his players, the youngest ever fielded by the West Indies with an average age just under 25, have been batting well but need to improve their bowling.
Seepersad announced the newest batch of players entering the Shell Academy, including seven Jamaicans, five from Barbados, four Trinidadians, four Guyanese, three from the Windward Islands and two from the Leeward Islands.
Academy director Rudi Webster urged participants to take advantage of the 12-week course that starts May 16.
"If I can change the way you think about yourselves, your abilities, team mates, your future, spiritual and social as well as your academic life by the end of the program, I would be the happiest man around," he told the news conference.
Players chosen include Guyana's Krishna Arjune, Derwin Christian, Damodar Daesrath and Brian Stephney; Dwayne Bravo, Amit Jaggernath, Denzil James and Kenton Thompson of Trinidad and Tobago; Othneil Baptiste, Greg Francois, and Dennis George from the Windwards; Mwanghi Broomes, Carlo Morris, Randy Thomas, Jason Bennett and Ryan Wiggins of Barbados; Juari Edwards and Tonito Willett of the Leewards; and Shawn Findlay, Danza Hyatt, Maurice Kepple, Tamar Lambert, Andrew Richardson, Jerome Taylor, and Dwight Washington of Jamaica.
Seepersad said they had "demonstrated that they have what it takes to be high-class players."
The academy, created three years ago in response to the failing fortunes of the West Indies, has graduated 47 regional players and four from outside the Caribbean.
