[www.inewsguyana.com] – West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) Chief Executive Officer, Michael Muirhead says the Sagicor West Indies High Performance Centre (HPC) in Barbados will likely have a new sponsor when the contract with Sagicor expires in August.
The WICB development programme, based at the University of the West Indies (UWI) campus in Barbados is now looking for a new sponsor as the Barbados-based insurance company has signaled it will not be renewing its contract.
The program started under Welshman Toby Radford in June 2010. According to Muirhead, “as a company they thought they had great advances in it and it was an excellent thing, but Sagicor themselves were having, I won’t say financial difficulties, but (were) sort of stretched and their profits have not been what they wanted them to be, so they are looking at various ways to come back.
“We have not totally taken it off the table, we will approach them again, but we will be approaching others and we have some very good potential sposnsors for it.”
The inaugural class of the Sagicor HPC included players like Trinidad and Tobago and West Indies pacer Shannon Gabriel, Barbados and WI fast bowler Jason Holder, Barbados all-rounder Shamarh Brooks, Guyanese and WI left arm-spinner Veerasammy Permaul and Windward Islands leg-spinner Kerron Cottoy, along with Brendan Bess, Kraigg Brathwaite and Shane Dowrich.
Asked if he thought the HPC was carrying out the mission it was established to perform, Muirhead was confident the Centre had and would continue to.
“We have produced. It certainly has done much of what it was supposed to do and what it needs to do, which is produce (WI) cricketers who are better than the rest, “the Jamaican said.
“It needs a constant state of refreshing itself and I think we need to bring more expertise within the centre itself.”
