Walsh happy with West Indies Women pool expansion
The West Indies Women training camp which gets underway today will feature 30 ladies from across the region an additional six more players from the last camp and head coach, Courtney Walsh is happy with the expansion.
It was Walsh who, during his first media interaction upon assuming the job expressed an interest in expanding the pool of players available for the senior women’s side.
Now, in his most recent interview on Friday, the former West Indies pacer said the move was a positive one despite the hurdles presented.
“It’s been very, very challenging,” Walsh admitted, adding, “But what we have done with the blessings of Cricket West Indies, we’ve widened the pool to have 30 players coming into this camp.
“I’m very excited about the youngsters who we were hoping would have played in the regional or seen some others playing so we’ve got six new members coming in but they were also on the programme doing training from the last camp so they are new coming into the camp but not new in the set up entirely.”
Walsh said that the pandemic caused a shift in plans that were in place to see more ladies coming through adding that it was a proactive approach to select a few of them that were in and around the set up.
“Unfortunately with the pandemic we cannot, or could not host a competition so we can actually see some of them so what we have done is took the initiative with the youngsters that we knew and the other persons that were in the programme training to add them to the pool of players so we can get a look at them. So we’re going to see six new players in this camp for the first time and that we can assess that, as well as getting them ready for consistency and awareness,” Walsh reasoned.
Among the newbies in the set up is Guyanese all-rounder, Mandy Mangru who joins the other Guyanese players Shemaine Campbelle, Cherry Ann Fraser, Shabika Gajnabi, Kaycia Schultz and Sheneta Grimmond.
At the top of his agenda, the head coach was still hopeful of a regional tournament prior to the World Cup qualifiers in order to further widen the pool and give them a chance to see more ladies and their skill.
FULL SQUAD SELECTED: Aaliyah Alleyne, Reniece Boyce, Shanika Bruce, Shemaine Campbelle, Shamilia Connell, Britney Cooper, Deandra Dottin, Cherry Ann Fraser, Shabika Gajnabi, Jannillea Glasgow, Sheneta Grimmond, Shawnisha Hector, Chinelle Henry, Caneisha Isaac, Zaida James, Japhina Joseph, Qiana Joseph, Kycia Knight, Kyshona Knight, Mandy Mangru, Hayley Matthews, Anisa Mohammed, Chedean Nation, Karishma Ramharack, Kaysia Schultz, Shakera Selman, Steffi Soogrim, Stafanie Taylor, Rachel Vincent, Rashada Williams
TEAM MANAGEMENT UNIT: Courtney Walsh (Head Coach), Sheena Gooding (Team Manager), Ryan Austin (Assistant Coach), Corey Collymore (Assistant Coach), Steve Liburd (Assistant Coach), Samantha Lynch (Assistant Coach), Robert Samuels (Assistant Coach), Neil Barry (Physiotherapist), Shayne Cooper (Strength & Conditioning Coach), Garry Belle (Team Analyst), Amanda Johnson (Team Mental Skills Coach), Naasira Mohammed (Media & Content Officer)