West Indies academy coach leads fast bowling camp for young St Lucia quicks

Some of the brightest young fast bowlers on the island have spent a week being put through their paces by a West Indies development coach, in a sign of how seriously cricket in St Lucia is being taken at grassroots and academy level. Ramesh Subasinghe, head coach of the West Indies Academy, led a five-day camp at the Saint Lucia Cricket High Performance Centre, continuing an involvement that has seen him visit regularly over the past twelve months.

As reported by St. Lucia Times, the Sri Lankan former medium pacer worked with a group that included West Indies Under-19 players McKenny Clarke and Selena Ross, Windward Islands bowler Keon Gaston, and emerging quicks such as Shawnil Edward and Kethan Charlemagne. His focus was on technical development, refining the actions of bowlers whose athleticism he regards as already well established.

Subasinghe was generous in his assessment of the raw material on show. Caribbean quicks, he said, possess natural attributes and are very good athletes, and he singled out the centre's strength and conditioning coach, Damique Walters, for the work he has done building the players physically. The next step, in his view, is converting that physical base into bowling skill, maximising what makes each individual unique through targeted technical interventions.

Much of the discussion during the camp centred on workload. Subasinghe and the centre's head coach, John Eugene, together with assistant bowling coach Larry Edward, deliberated on how many overs the players should be bowling each week. Technical work, Subasinghe stressed, is fundamental: a bowler who can repeat a sound action ball after ball gains the consistency every quick is searching for, and in some cases small mechanical adjustments can even add pace. He argued that time must be set aside across a twelve-month calendar specifically for technique, because that is what will unlock each player's potential.

The coach came away encouraged by the players' engagement. He said the level of feedback he received was pleasing, with the bowlers asking plenty of questions, something he welcomes because self-awareness is critical for any bowler hoping to progress. For readers who follow sport in Saint Lucia, the camp is another sign that the island's pathway to West Indies honours is being strengthened, building on a tradition that runs from Daren Sammy, the only captain to win the ICC World Twenty20 twice, to the current crop of young quicks.

The High Performance Centre has become a hub for this kind of work, and Saint Lucia's place in the regional structure matters here: the island's national team sits under the Windward Islands Cricket Board of Control, whose players graduate to Windward Islands domestic sides and, for the best of them, the West Indies. Investment in coaching capacity, of the kind Subasinghe has been delivering to local coaches over the past year, is precisely what shortens that road.

There is a wider story too. Sport and cricket are part of what draws visitors to the island, and the same qualities that make Saint Lucia attractive to young athletes, the climate, the facilities and the passion of the local crowd, underpin tourism. Whether people come for the cricket, for hiking in St Lucia's rainforest trails, or simply to see the Pitons rising from the sea near Soufrière, visitor spending keeps the economy of Saint Lucia turning, so success on the field and a healthy visitor trade tend to reinforce one another.

For travellers, the island offers plenty beyond the boundary rope, and the dry season from December to May is often considered the best time to visit St Lucia for cricket and sunshine alike. Many visitors book holidays to St Lucia around a match or a festival, filling the days in between with things to do in St Lucia from catamaran trips to plantation tours. Whatever brings them, the island keeps producing athletes worth watching, and the latest group of young fast bowlers will hope that a week of hard technical work is the first step towards a West Indies cap of their own.