Floyd?Reifer?says the Combined Campuses & Colleges will look to remain competitive in the Regional 4-Day and Super50 cricket tournaments in spite of the revolving nature of their squad.
The CCC player/coach said the composite team was proud of what they had achieved in senior regional competitions over the past five years and they were looking for another solid performance.
“Judging success for us is being competitive. Once we are competitive, we will be satisfied.
“We also want to win a few matches because we strongly believe that this is a part of development,” the 40-year-old Reifer told WICB Media in an interview.
Last year, CCC?won just one game against the Leeward Islands and lost the other five to finish sixth in the seven-team tournament.
“Ultimately, we want to be a side that when teams turn up to play us, they have to play sound cricket to beat us,” Reifer said.
“Our preparations for the 4-Day and Super50 are going well. We would have loved a little bit more time to prepare the squad, but we have been making full use of the time that we have and so far things are going well.”
Reifer, who has played 145 first-class matches since his debut way back in 1992, scoring 7 397 runs at an average of 31.88 with 13 centuries, said the biggest challenge will be to assimilate the new players into the squad.
“It is about rebuilding for our programme and trying to get the players to be fit and ready . . . ,” he said.
“We have done a lot for cricket in the West Indies since our introduction. We have had a number of players that have been regular members of West Indies ‘A’ teams and some have played for their territories after being given a good base here.
“We have not done too badly as a team over the years. It’s just a reality that we cannot have a squad together for two or three years to maximise the quality of the players, but it is a development programme and we are looking to develop players for the territories and West Indies cricket overall.”
Reifer said he was looking forward to the challenge that the new format for the season brings with the teams alternating between the two versions of the game.
“It will be important for teams to manage their players and use a system of rotation for the bowlers, so they won’t suffer from burn-out towards the end of the season,” he said.
He cited captain Kyle Corbin, Raymon Reifer, Chadwick Walton, Kevin McClean, Ryan Austin and Akeem Dewar as players capable of match-winning performances. (EZS/WICB Media)
