Up-and-coming Dominican cricketer, Alick Athanaze, has been named Vice Captain of the Windward Volcanoes for the upcoming CG United Super 50 Cup in Trinidad. The 14-man squad for the tournament was announced this week.
The Volcanoes will be led by veteran Grenadian cricketer, Andre Fletcher, while Athanaze will serve as deputy.
“We wish the team all the best on their journey to become CG United Super 50 Champions,” Windward Cricket said in an announcement.
Another Dominican, Kavem Hodge, was also named on the team. The Windward Volcanoes consists of cricketers from Dominica, St Lucia, Grenada and St Vincent. The CG United Super50 Cup 2023 bowls off on Tuesday, October 17, and conclude on Saturday
November 11.
It’s the region’s premier List A 50-over tournament and will feature a new eight-team league with each of the teams facing each other once.
During the tournament, 31 matches are to be played at three venues: the Brian Lara Cricket Academy (BLCA), the Queen’s Park Oval (QPO), and the Sir Frank Worrell Cricket Grounds of the University of the West Indies Sport and Physical Education Centre (UWI SPEC) at the St. Augustine Campus.
Miles Bascombe, Director of Cricket and Cricket West Indies (CWI) said the upcoming tournament will serve as a platform for the emergence of new talents in West Indies cricket.
“This is a crucial stage in our planning as we look to build towards the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2027,” he stated. “We see the upcoming CG United Super50 Cup as the perfect platform to establish and incentivize a West Indies brand of play in the 50-over format, and for the emergence of new talent.
The introduction of the round-robin format will provide players with more ‘playing time’ in the middle as well as a balanced way of gauging individual and team performances. We are pleased to again have CCC and the West Indies Academy participating at the senior level as they join the other six franchise teams as we look to widen the pool of players.”
Cricket fans in the Caribbean will be able to watch the matches on ESPN Caribbean or on Cricket West Indies YouTube Channel.
The full squad for the Windward Volcanoes are as follows:
Andre Fletcher (captain)
Alick Athanaze (vice captain)
Sunil Ambris
Johnson Charles
Darel Cyrus
Kenneth Dember
Shadrack Descarte
Larry Edwards
Kavem Hodge
Ryan John
Shermon Lewis
Jeremy Solanzo
Shamar Springer
Tevynn Walcott
Good to see that he’s being recognized for the past performances. However, I don’t support the extra stress and burden put on his shoulders at this stage of his young career. I watched him play in his first test match and found he lacks the required mental focus and discipline. He had four days to get to his first test half century milestone and he was un-top of the bowlers. Had he had and demonstrated the necessary fortitude he could have gone on to score many more runs and helped West Indies. He played a high risk shot and got out. The mental muscle memory of winning is the ONLY thing that matters, he doesn’t have it yet. Now giving him added responsibility without that attribute is not going to help his cause to go on to become a great cricketer with a long career. Look at how the young Indian batsman playing in his first test match demonstrated the mental muscle and went on to score a maiden century. Despite that I want to wish him well in the upcoming series.
Wow! It’s hard for me to believe that there are only two Dominicans on the Windwards team in 2023. But truth is we are even lucky to have two Dominicans on the team because I don’t see cricket being played anywhere in Dominica today as Roosevelt Skerrit and his pappyshow cabinot ministers have destroyed cricket in Dominica the last 20 yrs