By Akeem Greene
In order to nurture more talents in Essequibo, the county board is hosting a three-day Coaches development and High-Performance clinic to strengthen and expand the pool of coaches in the county.
Experienced Level III coach Keshava Ramphal heads the camp and is assisted by fellow Trinidadian Brendon Ramlal and Guyana Harpy Eagles Assistant Coach, Ryan Hercules.
Over the three days, aspiring coaches will go through eight modules and four practical workshops to enhance their coaching prowess.
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.”
“A programme like this we need not only here in GCB or ECB, but in every single village in the Caribbean.”
He explained that in 2018 Cricket West Indies (CWI) and the University of West Indies (UWI) did a comparative analysis of all the best coaching programmes in the world, to formulate the West Indian way of coaching which has now morphed into an organic Level I to III programme by CWI.
Ramphal is currently pursuing a PhD, and the study is on the impact of sport on academic performance in primary and secondary schools, and it is the reason he rationalised that “we want good skilled cricketers, but also good thinking cricketers.”
Furthermore, Ramphal, who is also the Guyana Harpy Eagles Data Analyst, quelled the notion that because “you would have played the game means you can coach the game, which are two significantly different things. You are impacting lives and you are impacting children so you have to do it the proper way.”
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.”
The former national player added, “We had it rough. I played for Essequibo for about 19 years and the team would travel and only four or five players had equipment out of a whole team, we know this.”
NEW FRONTIER FOR ESSEQUIBO CRICKET
Meanwhile, 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.
In the bid to deliver on the promise of inclusivity for all committees, the ECB has amended its constitution to cater for two more Vice-Presidents- Budesh Chatterpaul from Bartica and Vishal Ambedkar of East Bank Essequibo. Elroy Stephney is the other VP.
Additionally, the selector committee has increased from three to nine, which means one chair and one representative from each of the area committees.
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.
The ECB Head expressed immense gratitude for the support of Safeway Supermarket, Adamantium Holdings, KGM Security, Welbuilt Construction, Azruddin Mohamed, Buside Mining, Takur Hardware, Samaroo Investment, Assuria General, Govinauth General Store, Henry Alphonso, KGM Wireless, Joe Jagmohan, Innovation America, Suresh Jagmohan, Imam Bacchus and Sons Limited, Mahadeo Foundation, WD’s Hotel and Mall, Navin Singh’s Mining and Ramballie Construction.
