ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Steve Liburd has been ap­point­ed as head coach of the Lee­ward Is­lands Hur­ri­canes.

The an­nounce­ment was made on Sat­ur­day by the Lee­ward Is­lands Crick­et Board (LICB), which re­vealed that Liburd, the for­mer Lee­ward Is­lands bats­man, would serve in the role for the next two years.

In a state­ment, the LICB said Liburd’s ap­point­ment would “bring a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence and lead­er­ship” to the team.

Liburd has served in sev­er­al coach­ing ca­pac­i­ties, in­clud­ing head coach of the West In­dies’ Un­der-19 women’s team and the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors Women’s team in the Caribbean Pre­mier League.

“Hav­ing rep­re­sent­ed the Lee­ward Is­lands with dis­tinc­tion dur­ing his play­ing ca­reer, Liburd’s deep un­der­stand­ing of the game and his ded­i­ca­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of crick­et in the re­gion make him an ide­al choice for this role,” the state­ment read.

“In ad­di­tion to his play­ing ca­reer, Liburd has ex­ten­sive coach­ing ex­pe­ri­ence at var­i­ous lev­els in­clud­ing youth and se­nior teams with­in Crick­et West In­dies. His abil­i­ty to nur­ture young tal­ent and his strate­gic ap­proach to coach­ing have earned him recog­ni­tion and re­spect with­in the crick­et­ing com­mu­ni­ty.”

Pres­i­dent of the LICB, Enoch Lewis, said he was look­ing for­ward to Liburd tak­ing up his new role.

“We are de­light­ed to wel­come Steve Liburd back to the Lee­ward Is­lands Hur­ri­canes, this time in the ca­pac­i­ty of head coach.

“Steve’s pas­sion for the game, com­bined with his ex­pe­ri­ence and lead­er­ship skills will be in­valu­able as we look to build a win­ning team cul­ture and de­vel­op the next gen­er­a­tion of crick­et tal­ent in the Lee­ward Is­lands,” Lewis said.

Mean­while, Liburd ex­pressed his en­thu­si­asm for the new po­si­tion, stat­ing, “It is an ho­n­our to re­turn to the Lee­ward Is­lands Hur­ri­canes as head coach. I am ex­cit­ed about the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with the play­ers and staff to achieve our col­lec­tive goals and take the team to new heights.”

The LICB said Liburd’s ap­point­ment was part of its on­go­ing com­mit­ment to “build­ing a strong and com­pet­i­tive team that can achieve suc­cess at the re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el.”

CMC