The following article is credited to Cricket West Indies Media Release: 

Georgetown, Guyana - The first Level Two Coaching course delivered by Cricket West Indies (CWI) in eight years, in collaboration with the University of the West Indies (UWI), Faculty of Sport, concluded on Monday in Guyana.

All CWI member countries and ICC Americas members have access to this course, with another Level Two course scheduled to follow in Barbados next month.

This course is part of CWI’s strategic plan to strengthen and develop the regional coaching talent pool, considering the vital importance coaches have in developing cricketers skills at an early age.

25 participants took part in the four-day course and included current and former Guyana and West Indies players such as Ramnaresh Sarwan, Leon Johnson, Travis Dowlin, Andre Percival, Veerasammy Permaul, Vishal Singh, Steven Jacobs.

A notable former beneficiary of this previous level two course in 2008 is former Jamaican Fast bowler Andrew Richardson, who has roles with Caribbean Premier League side Jamaica Tallawahs and the current West Indies A team as an assistant coach.

Jimmy Adams, CWI Director of Cricket, commented on why the program has been absent for eight years:

“After a period of about eight years, it is fantastic to have finally been able to get a level two course delivered. One of the additional positive factors is that it is now a CWI course. It’s taken almost two years in collaboration with UWI to put the content and structure together and I’m very proud of that fact. The response in Guyana was very positive and I’m hoping that the course will continue to grow and evolve and get to the point where its 100% meeting the needs of Caribbean coaches. It also highlights our commitment to coaching development within the region. The level two is an integral part of the coaching pathway, so it’s nice to finally get the gap plugged.”

Adams added:

“We have had a lot of help to get to this point and I’m sure the course will evolve over time. To the people at UWI and all the coaches around region whose input went into creating the course, I would like to use this opportunity to pay credit to them as well. The next big picture aim is to further develop our coaching pathway so that one-day we will also have a level three CWI course as well.”

Leon Johnson, Guyana Captain, shares his player perspective on the Level Two course:

“I’m very passionate about the game and everything it entails and coaching is part of that. 

I’ve always enjoyed teaching people and imparting knowledge that I’ve gained throughout my career and considering I believe I have a future in coaching currently while playing and when I’m finished, that got me involved in the program. 

The course was very insightful. Some things I already knew were reinforced, while I learnt a lot of new stuff. So overall it was great cricket educational experience.

Now that I’m still playing it will be very beneficial to have the knowledge gained over the last four days to implement in my game and hopefully take me to another level.” 

Daren Ganga, UWI Projects officer, on the University's role in the Level 2 certification said:

“The roots for this course is in the MOU signed between CWI/UWI, which has paved the way for UWI to develop certification courses for CWI. This starts with this first Level Two course, which was just rolled out in Guyana.

Secondly, the UWI Faculty of Sport that is relatively new, having been established in August 2017, is trying to help CWI build the coaching talent pool in the Caribbean.

In the past, CWI has had partnerships with the England And Wales Cricket Board (ECB) & Cricket Australia (CA) regarding them doing certification courses across region. Whilst this support is not always readily available to CWI, UWI has stepped in to play this role in terms of developing this program.

It’s a very comprehensive program, which entailed us doing a comparative analysis with the English and Australian coaching certificate programs. Based on this research, UWI was able to come up with program that sat perfectly in the Level Two coaching development pathway.”