Barbados Cricket Association article.
Bridgetown, Barbados - Elvis Howard has been appointed chairman of Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) Youth Selection Committee.
The rest of the panel which will be in place until February, 2018, include Hendy Wallace - chairman of the senior selection committee, Jason Haynes, Dexter Toppin and Richard Straker.
Howard and BCA coach Toppin are the surviving members of the last panel which was chaired by Livingstone Coppin.
He has also served on various Youth selection committees over the past 10-15 years, under the chairmanship of Roland Holder, Philo Wallace and Jeff Broomes.
The 42-year-old Howard was a Barbados under-17 team manager in 2008. He was a former president and public relations officer of the Barbados Schools' Cricket Council. He represented Wibix Cricket Club in the Intermediate and Second divisions in the late 1980s as a batsman.
In the 2008 regional youth tournament in Trinidad & Tobago, Howard managed the likes of current West Indies Test and One-Day captain Jason Holder . The side also included fellow Test players Kraigg Brathwaite, Shane Dowrich and Jomel Warrican, as well as current first-class players Mario Rampersaud and Justin Greaves.
Howard has been employed for the past two decades as Laboratory Assistant at the Graydon Sealy Secondary School (formerly Garrison Secondary), where he has been heavily involved in the cricket programme. He has overseen the development of Barbados and West Indies players Tino Best, Dwayne Smith and West Indies Women's player Shaquana Quintyne). During his tenure he has produced players for various Barbados Youth teams.
During a recent press conference at the BCA, Howard outlined the selectors’ visions for the annual WICB three regional youth tournaments (Under-15, 17 & 19) to be held between July and August 2016.
The players will be on show over the next two months, with a series of trial matches starting with this weekend, with 50- over contests in the under-17s on Saturday and Under-15s on Sunday both at Kensington Oval starting at 9: 30 a.m.
“Last year we had a real down season where we didn’t even place high in any of the competitions, so I think the first priority of the selectors is to get three good squads, and already we’ve have put plans in place as we want to win all three competitions,” Howard said.
“I figured that last year one of the problems was that we were very, very short on preparation and the board has seen it fit to give us the machinery from early. The boys were practising in the Centre of Excellence from around September last year and we’re into the second phase of that component.
“So we are happy that we’re having the support of the board in bringing back trial games, which I felt is the best way of gauging where the players are at after a number of practices. Hopefully, we can be happy, if not winning the competition, then coming no lower than second in all three competitions.
“There will be five to six trial matches across the three age groups. The trials will serve two purposes because at the end we will be reducing the numbers in the Centre of Excellence in each group to 25 and those will be ones who will be considered for selection.
"Right now there are very large groups in the COE (45 u-15), (62 u-17) and (63 u-19). We have to get the numbers down to around 25, so we can start to do some remedial work with the likely squad to go off to the youth championships.
"We want the trials to be competitive hence the selectors have put together some balanced sides. The matches will be played under same regulations as to what pertains in the regional tournaments," Howard added.
With all these plans that are in place for this year, Howard was asked how focussed he thinks the boys are? He replied: “Yes they are very focussed. The boys are very keen to get that coveted spot playing for Barbados. I have seen gradual improvements all-round in many of the boys, whom I have come into contact with over the years playing for their various schools.
I think that they are hungry to play for Barbados and even more now with the recent success of the West Indies Under-19 team which contained two of our players in all-rounder Shamar Springer and fast bowler Chemar Holder. To add to that, both these players have one year left in the Under-19 competition and that in itself is a plus for Barbados even before the competition begins.”
First Published On bcacricket.org.