Only a few people were there as the big Jamaican fast bowler Oshane Thomas delivered his opening ball in first-class cricket at Sabina Park last November.

High up in the North Stand, in an air conditioned box designated for officials, West Indies development coach Graeme West, an Englishman, was among the few, as Thomas, charging in from the north, bowled that first ball to Windward Islands and former West Indies opener, the left-handed  Devon Smith.

Delivered at high pace from over the wicket, the ball seemed to wobble through the air before touching down on a length, in line with Smith’s off stump. Trapped on the crease, the left-hander offered a tentative defensive bat, managing only to get an outside edge as the ball left him, for wicketkeeper Chadwick Walton to take the catch low to his left.

Those who saw it felt privileged. They had just witnessed a wonder first-ball from a 19 year-old debutant who was only playing because first choice seamer, Marquino Mindley, was ill.

Smiling from ear to ear, West – a coach at Middlesex before joining the West Indies Cricket Board coaching team in 2012 – gave a thumbs up and enthusiastic nod to journalists in the box next door.

West, who guided the West Under-19s to an unexpected ICC World Cup title in Bangladesh in early 2016, was happy not just for Thomas’ obvious talent but because of his rapid improvement since the regional Under-19 tournament in Jamaica in mid-2015. Back then, the most noticeable aspect of Thomas’ cricket apart from impressive pace was an extraordinarily ragged run-up to the bowling crease.

Such had been the improvement in the intervening period that last November one had to be watching closely to see the slight hitch mid-way Thomas’s measured, though still laborious, bowling approach. The improvement testified not just to Thomas’ desire, but crucially the contribution of coaches at his club Melbourne in Kingston, and franchise teams, Jamaica Tallawahs and Jamaica Scorpions.

Thomas’ case is not new.  Caribbean coaches have long been called on to help cricketers make fundamental adjustments to their methods well into their late teens, even into their 20s.

An extreme case is speedster Reynard Leveridge, a 26 year-old Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) seaman who played alongside Thomas for Jamaica Scorpions in that game against Windward Islands Volcanoes.

Leveridge, a former hockey and football player, wasn’t even a cricketer three years ago. He too, started out with a bowling approach that was “all over the place”, according to those who saw him at 23/24, before he “smoothed out” with the help of coaches.

After being seen by the powers that be in the nets at Sabina Park last year during the West Indies versus India Test series,  Leveridge was fast-tracked for a West Indies ‘A’ tour of Sri Lanka in October. Unfortunately he broke down with a groin injury in the fourth over of his first-class debut in Sri Lanka.

He recovered to set tongues wagging with his tear-away pace in the first half of the four-day regional domestic tournament late last year, and again in the Regional Super50 (50-over tournament) last month. Sadly, yet another groin injury in the final of the latter tournament has again ruled him out of cricket.

Far-reaching coaching interventions such as were necessary for teenager Thomas and a much older Leveridge are qualitatively different to what West was accustomed as a development coach in England before making the career shift to the Caribbean.

“For me, it was very different dealing with Caribbean youngsters,” said West.  

“The biggest difference was that in England you worked with players that have been coached, players who had become used to working with somebody they see as a coach, all the way through the (age-group) system… I found on coming to the Caribbean a lot of players (in their late teens) hadn’t had as much contact opportunity (with coaches),” West told the Jamaica Observer.

For West, the Caribbean has been a fascinating learning experience.

“I am better placed now than I was at the start to work with the players here,” he said.

“At first I didn’t understand the Caribbean, it’s only since I have travelled through the islands (and Guyana) that I have seen for myself how cricket features, how it is offered to youngsters, and I have been able to feel the flavour and the background of young players,” he said.

Crucial to the learning process has been West’s gradual appreciation of the economic underpinnings of cricket in the West Indies.

“It’s fair to say that in England the background of most young cricketers is middle class, it’s a fairly affluent background. With that comes things you take for granted, like players having their kits, and parents who take children from place to place.

“In the Caribbean I found that wasn’t always the case, kids come from pretty tough backgrounds and have to work very hard to get where they are. A lot of it has been done off their own backs … (and) cricket is a very expensive game. When I was a youngster playing, bats were expensive, but even more so now, and unfortunately the bats don’t last as long as they used to. Nowadays you have to have a helmet, there is lots of pressure to be wearing right shoes, all these costs make it difficult,” he said.

Also, he said, newcomers to the Caribbean do not readily appreciate the effect of costs such as air travel, hotels, allowances et al on overall cricket programmes, especially in an environment where funding from corporate sponsorship is insufficient or non-existent. “Such costs are very significant,” he said.  

Knowledge gained in the Caribbean since 2012 helped him significantly as he provided guidance for the WI Under-19s during their successful campaign in Bangladesh.

“Where players have shown improvement has a lot to do with my learning,” he said.

He paid tribute to “some very good players” who learnt and progressed rapidly during the World Cup campaign as well as “some very good support from assistant coaches, conditioning coaches, physios, managers… thanks to them, I am better placed now than I was at the start, to work with the players here”.

West was first brought to the West Indies to oversee the residential High Performance programme for young players at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies in Barbados. That programme at Cave Hill has since been scrapped.

West argued that while the residential programme had high value in helping to produce some of the leading players now in the West Indies team, the development of a professional franchise system and more recently the acquisition by the WICB of the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua means there are even better days ahead.

According to West, the growth of the franchise system benefits not only mature professionals, but supports the development of younger players in the various territories.

He is even more enthusiastic about the potential of the Coolidge facility for player development.

Formerly known as Sticky Wicket, a facility developed by imprisoned American investment banker Allen Stanford for his Stanford 20/20 tournament, the Coolidge ground was bought as a joint venture between the WICB and the Antigua government last year.

Coolidge was host to Group A of the recent regional limited overs tournament and is to be the base for WICB development programmes going forward.

 “I am very comfortable saying that the dream behind the acquisition of Sticky Wicket … is to create a world class high performance facility,” said West.

“In Barbados it was always going to be difficult because we were sharing facilities with the university and there were limitations with what could be done on the site.

“In Antigua we will have full autonomy over the facility, we will be able to produce what we are looking for… once you have your own facility things start to open up, you are in control of your own destiny,” he said.

“Moving forward we would like to invest and resource the best young players coming through the system, but not quite for the same (residential) periods as the (previous) high performance cohort programme, ” he said.

For West, the Antigua facility could radically change Caribbean cricket development, if approached properly.

“I would really now like to see us develop a facility in Antigua that is going to allow us to develop players to the highest level. We pretty much have a blank canvas so that, for me, is something that I am really looking forward to,” he said.