Such has been the excitement surrounding Jamaica’s impressive performances at the World Athletics Championships in Hungary, the women’s football World Cup in Australia/New Zealand, and Netball World Cup in South Africa, much else may have been missed on the sporting front this summer.

Worthy of note, we think, is Jamaica’s success at the Cricket West Indies (CWI) Rising Stars Men’s Under-19 tournament in St Vincent in early August. For the first time in a decade the Jamaicans took the Under-19 double — both 50-over and 3-day tournaments.

In July, the Trinidad and Tobago Women’s Under-19 team won that Rising Stars 50-overs tournament on home soil.

And this week Barbados took CWI Rising Stars Under-17 double — winning the 50-over and 2-day sections.

In April, Trinidad and Tobago won the Rising Stars Under-15 50-over title.

West Indies cricket has been at a low ebb for a long time, more particularly with the elimination at the preliminary stage of the Twenty20 World Cup late last year and failing to qualify for the upcoming One Day International (50-over) World Cup in India.

Readers will recall that in June, West Indies — famed two-time winners of the ODI World Cup back in the 1970s — were knocked out at the qualifying stage for this year’s edition.

Such embarrassing setbacks have quite appropriately triggered questions about the future viability of West Indies cricket and the quality of its off-the-field leadership.

However, to the credit of CWI, it has consistently maintained development programmes, including the annual age-group tournaments mentioned above, despite a chronic shortage of money and sponsorship support.

We are particularly pleased that the ongoing West Indies Under-19 tour of Sri Lanka was made possible. As cricket watchers will know, the youth ODI section of the tour closed on Friday with Sri Lanka winning the three-match series 2-1.

A two-match, four-day youth ‘Test’ series between the sides will begin on September 5.

The value of such experience for young Caribbean players is beyond measure.

How to finance such development programmes and tours at age-group level for both men and women, including A team tours focusing on young players, is an aspect that must be given priority by CWI, in partnership with regional governments and the business sector.

Allied to that should be academies in the various territories patterned off programmes for both men and women in Antigua.

Regrettably, resource constraints have limited developmental opportunities for our young female cricketers. So that the proactive decision to include a number of young players who have represented the CWI Rising Stars Women’s Under-19s and the senior West Indies Women’s Team in the Women’s Caribbean Premier League (WCPL) which started this week is encouraging.

However, even as considerable excitement is building in regards to the Men’s CPL, which begun just over a week ago, we have to repeat that there is clear need for a genuine regional domestic T20 tournament.

Useful though it is, the CPL is not primarily meant to develop Caribbean talent. It is business, aimed at a global television audience involving players from around the world, which means limited opportunities for regional players.

A way needs to be found for our young players to be properly exposed to the fast-growing T20 format.