da mrbet： The legendary Sir Garfield Sobers heads a distinguished list of formerTest players earmarked to be among the tutors for the first batch ofstudents at the Shell Cricket Academy of St
Haydn Gill06-May-2001The legendary Sir Garfield Sobers heads a distinguished list of formerTest players earmarked to be among the tutors for the first batch ofstudents at the Shell Cricket Academy of St. George’s University.Academy director Dr. Rudi Webster said it was also hoped that otherslike Sir Everton Weekes, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, DavidHolford, Joey Carew, Gus Logie, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh wouldbe available at some stage during the three-month programme startingon May 15.One of greatest and most neglected assets here in the Caribbean is ourformer Test players, Webster said.We don’t realise what a gold mine we have in that area and itirritates me to hear people say that ex-cricketers don’t know anythingabout coaching or they don’t know anything about the game.What Sir Garfield Sobers has forgotten, most of these young peoplewouldn’t know.In addition to the former West Indies Test players, Webster hassecured the services of current Test leg-spinner Dinanath Ramnarineand two Australian coaches who were behind the success of championstate side Queensland for the past two seasons.The state’s coach Bennett King and assistant coach Terry Oliver willbe here three weeks during the second month of the programme, which isgeared towards 24 of the region’s promising cricketers between theages of 18 and 23.The 35-year King, a former Australia Under-19 player, was assistantcoach for a few seasons before taking over from current national coachJohn Buchanan, while Oliver is regional cricket manager withQueensland Cricket where he is also state co-ordinator of specialprogrammes.Bob Woolmer, who enjoyed great success as coach of South Africa, alsoexpressed an interest in playing a part in the academy, but dutieswith English county Warwickshire will prevent him from doing so.The former West Indies players are expected to join the set-up in thelast month.It was already disclosed that two Cuban coaches would be coming,mainly to deal with fielding and fitness, and there will also be thepresence of a renowned sports psychologist from Havana.The wide-ranging programme focuses on several areas, but it has beenbroken down into four main pillars: fitness, technical, tactical andmental.The main thing that I am trying to achieve at the academy is to tryand get those youngsters to start thinking for themselves, becausethis is the weakness in our cricket, Webster said.We do not think very well under pressure. A lot of the training willbe teaching these guys how to deal with pressure and how to managetheir thinking and things like concentration and stuff like that.