KINGSTON, Ja­maica — Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of Crick­et West In­dies (CWI), Chris Dehring, met with Ja­maica’s Sports Min­is­ter Olivia ‘Bab­sy’ Grange, on Mon­day (April 7), as part of his on­go­ing en­gage­ment with re­gion­al stake­hold­ers.

The dis­cus­sions with Min­is­ter Grange fo­cused on the up­com­ing Test against Aus­tralia at Sabi­na Park and the prepa­ra­tions for a his­toric day/night Test match from Ju­ly 12–16. Key high­lights from the dis­cus­sion in­clud­ed plans to strength­en the crick­et in­fra­struc­ture and grass­roots crick­et for both boys and girls.

Hail­ing the dis­cus­sions a suc­cess, es­pe­cial­ly with Aus­tralia set to play in Ja­maica for the first time in a decade, Dehring said: “I am ex­treme­ly pleased with the in­tent shown by the Min­is­ter of Sport and by ex­ten­sion the Gov­ern­ment of Ja­maica to col­lab­o­rate with Crick­et West In­dies ahead of the im­mi­nent Aus­tralia tour. ​ In ad­di­tion, I would like to thank the Min­is­ter for the re­cent­ly an­nounced sup­port for the Ja­maica Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion to pur­chase and in­stall the new lights at Sabi­na Park in time for the Aus­tralia Test and T20 match­es. With this in view, we be­lieve fans will en­joy the ex­pe­ri­ence of what will be the first day/night, pink ball Test in Ja­maica.”

For Min­is­ter Grange, it was a plea­sure to have dis­cus­sions with the Crick­et West In­dies CEO to learn of his plans and vi­sion for the game, in­clud­ing how the gov­ern­ment can work close­ly with the re­gion­al body to strength­en the re­la­tion­ship.

She said: “I found the dis­cus­sions with CEO Dehring most pro­duc­tive and ex­cit­ing. We, as a gov­ern­ment, have demon­strat­ed tan­gi­bly our com­mit­ment to the fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of crick­et in Ja­maica and the re­gion and pledges even more sup­port for the sport of crick­et. I cer­tain­ly wish Chris all the suc­cess in his new role as CEO. We are con­fi­dent his ex­pe­ri­ence and com­mit­ment au­gurs well for the ad­vance­ment of West In­dies crick­et. I look for­ward to work­ing with Chris.”

With Min­is­ter Grange pledg­ing to sup­port the Ja­maica Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion with an in­vest­ment of 100 mil­lion Ja­maican dol­lars across five years at the grass­roots lev­el, Dehring sees this as a mas­sive move to reen­er­gise the pas­sion and de­sire for the game at the low­er lev­els.

He fur­ther added: “A key take­away for me and the re­gion is the spe­cial push by the Min­is­ter and her team to in­vest in grass roots and women’s crick­et, in par­tic­u­lar in Ja­maica. I must add, that with this lev­el of com­mit­ment, the Caribbean stands to ben­e­fit tremen­dous­ly and can play a dom­i­nant role in World Crick­et with the ath­let­ic abil­i­ty of our women.”

Dehring re­it­er­at­ed his stance that CWI re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing close­ly with all re­gion­al gov­ern­ments to en­sure an ef­fec­tive and strong path­way for the cur­rent and next gen­er­a­tion of crick­eters.

(Cour­tesy CWI Me­dia)