Two of Barbados’ young and bright cricketing talents, Jomel Warrican of ICBL Empire and Rachid O’Neal of the Barbados Defence Force Sports Programme left the island on Monday to spend the next three months honing their skills in England.
Off-spinner Warrican, also a student of Combermere, will be spending his time at Sefton Park. He was seen off by principal of the Waterford institution, Vere Parris. Speedster O’Neal, who will be at Wavertree, was given a send off by a large group of family members.
Both Warrican and O’Neal saw the training as the opportunity for them to become better players and move to the next level of representing Barbados at the senior level and hopefully the West Indies. Ironically, the two players leave with mixed feelings as their clubs are experiencing different fortunes in the local Division 1 competition.
While BDF have won successive matches, Empire have suffered consecutive defeats for the first time in many seasons. Warrican expressed confidence in the quality of players at his club raising their game to get over the current bump, while O’Neal expects his teammates to adequately fill any breach his departure would create for BDFSP to continue performing well.
The players were accompanied by BCA’s board member Winston Stafford, who will spend a week with them ensuring they settle in properly.
This will be the second time that Warrican will be preparing his game in England having won the Lord Gavron Scholarship, a year ago.
