With all eyes on Monday’s start of the West Indies Twenty20 (T20) World Cup qualifying campaign, many Caribbean cricket watchers may well have missed something this newspaper considers a most important development.

We refer to news that administrators of the regional game, Cricket West Indies (CWI), have included the West Indies Academy and the Combined Campuses & Colleges (CCC) in the regional 50 overs competition, the 2022 CG United Super50 Cup. That’s set for Antigua and Trinidad from October 29 to November 19.

The academy and CCC, blessed with some of the more talented young Caribbean cricketers, will join the six regional franchises — Windward Islands Volcanoes, Guyana Harpy Eagles, defending champions Trinidad and Tobago Red Force, Leeward Islands Hurricanes, Barbados Pride, and Jamaica Scorpions — in the annual 50-over competition.

We agree with CWI that the move will enhance development and help to bridge the gap between youth and professional cricket, while broadening the pool of players available for selection to the West Indies team.

It’s useful to recall that in 2019, prior to a near two-year break in all regional domestic cricket caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic, West Indies Emerging Players won the Super50 Cup. CWI proudly reminds us that six of those players have since represented West Indies.

Cricket watchers will know that, regionally, lack of money down the years has led to haphazard, stop and start, rather than sustained attention to youth development beyond the teenage stage.

Indeed, the academy programme — which has long been seen as essential — only resumed early this year after a long break.

The hope must be that the renewed emphasis on youth development, as evidenced by the inclusion of the Antigua-based academy and the CCC in the CG United Super50 Cup, will be sustained.

Dare we hope that at least one dedicated regional team with an emphasis on youth can be part of the four-day regional competition to come?

Youth apart, there is also clear need for a genuinely regional, domestic T20 tournament.

Useful though it is, the very popular franchise-based Caribbean Premier League (CPL) is not primarily meant to develop Caribbean talent. The CPL is a business aimed at a global television audience. Hence the drafting of players from all over the world, which means limited opportunities for regional players who are yet to gain acclaim.

Former white-ball West Indies Captain Mr Kieron Pollard made that point a year ago after the failed West Indies T20 campaign in the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Said Mr Pollard back then: “When we had the Caribbean T20 (replaced by the CPL nine years ago), that was an opportunity for people to bring new talents from different parts of the Caribbean, and we [were] able to have a sort of nucleus …

“But since CPL has come in … we have only the opportunity to sort of recycle the same players over and over and over again.”

The challenge is finding the money to execute a regional domestic T20 competition. In that regard all praise is due to CG United Insurance Ltd for continuing to support West Indies cricket by way of sponsoring the Super50. Theirs is an example others need to follow.