Jackie Hendriks, president Jamaica Cricket Association. - Anthony Minott/Freelance Photographer

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):

JAMAICA CRICKET Asso-ciation (JCA) president, Jackie Hendriks, has urged current regional players to pay less attention to financial gain and place more emphasis on their mandate of returning West Indies cricket to its former dizzying heights.

Hendriks, an ex-West Indies cricketer and selector, said the legacies left by former great cricketers like the late Sir Clyde Walcott needed to serve as an inspiration to the current generation of West Indies players.

"I certainly feel that the legacies these great cricketers leave is something to be revered by the players who play today, who are striving to emulate what these greats did and try to bring West Indies cricket back to where it was," Hendriks told CMC Sports.

"This is one of the very important duties that the young cricketers have to do - bring cricket back to where it was and let's forget all this insistence on money, money, money.

Bring it back

"Let us think about the cricket, West Indies cricket, and pay respect and honour to West Indies cricket and bring it back to where the West Indian public would expect it to be."

Hendriks contended that the region's young cricketers were not aware of how the past greats had contributed to the development West Indies cricket on and off the field.

"Well you know, unfortunately, these days (and) I say this with all sincerity, I think ... some of the great feats that people like Sir Everton (Weekes), Sir Clyde and others have done, I find that our young cricketers need to go back in history and read more about these great players and people and realise how all of them who were so great have contributed to West Indies cricket not only on the cricket field but off the cricket field in various ways," the 72-year-old administrator said.

Hendriks pointed to the late Sir Clyde, the legendary member of the Three Ws, who died Saturday at age 80, as a model of commitment to the development of West Indies cricket.

Service to the region

He pointed out that even after his playing days were finished, Sir Clyde still continued to serve regional cricket. This, he noted, needed to be emulated by present-day cricketers.

"Sir Clyde as a player, a manager, selector, president of the West Indies Cricket Board; here was a man who was committed to what he did. It was his life if I may say so. He lived for cricket," Hendriks said.

"And this is what I think we've got to get our young players today to appreciate. They are players for a certain length of time but after that, if they are committed to cricket, they've got to start getting them-selves prepared to go into whatever other spheres of cricket life there are and helping other youngsters like Sir Clyde did, helping other youngsters along the way and sitting back and watching them perform."

Hendriks played 20 Tests between 1962 and 1969 as a wicketkeeper/-batsman, scoring 442 runs taking 42 catches and effecting five stumpings.