Varied approach necessary for award of contracts, says chief selector

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — West Indies Women’s chief selector, Ann Brownejohn has underscored the importance of a multifaceted approach for determining central retainer contracts for the Caribbean side.

While pointing out that performance remains central to the criteria, the veteran administrator said there are other factors which need to be considered in the process if Cricket West Indies (CWI) is to maximise its talent pool.

“There are a number of factors that you look at when you are awarding contracts,” she told an online media conference on Friday.

“You look at performance, you look at longevity, you look at development because some players will get a senior contract and some people will get a development contract.

“We have to look at what we have now and where we are going, so there will be many, many names that will be brought to the fore. We look at the entire pool of players that we have and then a determination is made.”

CWI retained all 15 players from the previous year while adding three new players to the contract list for the upcoming year beginning July 1.

Uncapped Kaysia Schultz, a 24-year-old left-arm spinner, has been rewarded with one of the three new contracts while fast bowlers Qiana Joseph and Shawnisha Hector have taken the others.

Joseph played two matches in the 2017 ICC World Cup while Hector featured in a single One-day International two years ago.

Browne-john said with the coronavirus pandemic having ruled out any domestic women’s cricket last year, it had been important to to bring a development element to the retainer contracts this year.

“It is really a pleasure for us to have the additional contracts,” she explained.

“We did not have a regional tournament last year and not having seen more players in a competitive arena, we thought it would be best if we could put some other players, some young players, on contract.

“We hope that they would realise that CWI is interested in them, that we have seen the work they have done and can do. And, it will give the technical staff an opportunity to focus more on these young players and see what they can produce for us and see where they can go from there.”

She continued: “When a player gets a contract they will realise immediately that the eyes are a lot more on them, but there is a lot more work to do — so we thought this was really positive that CWI has seen the need to do this.”

West Indies have struggled badly with their form in recent years and will face a qualifier at year end in order to secure their spot for next year’s 50-overs World Cup in India.

Selectors have been attempting to expand the pool of players and recently named a 30-member training squad, including two 16-year-olds, for an ongoing high-performance camp in Antigua.

Browne-john said the new players were already showing themselves to be worthy investments.

“If you look at some of the young players that have come in, we know that we had need for left-arm bowlers, left-handed [batsmen] and fast bowlers,” Browne-john said.

“We really like the enthusiasm we are getting from these [new] players and the energy that they bring, and we think the future is going in the right direction.”