Carter focused on West Indies legacy

Cricket West Indies’ (CWI) appointment of batting consultant Bob Carter, though only for a year, is aimed less at the short-term success of the senior team and more at establishing a platform on which future generations can build.

“West Indies cricket has a proud tradition of producing outstanding batsmen, and my job is to help build the base to produce future generations of world-class players,” said Carter.

“My focus has always been on supporting players and coaches to reach their full potential, and I am looking forward to working alongside the regional and high-performance coaches to help achieve that.”

The experienced New Zealand coach, who officially assumed the role on September 1, will work across CWI’s men’s, women’s and age-group programmes. His appointment comes as the West Indies prepare for the Men’s ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier in February and March 2027, followed by the World Cup preparation window.

His first assignment will be a regional tour later this month, taking him across all six first-class territories: Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the Leeward Islands, and the Windward Islands. During the tour, he will work directly with players and coaches.

Carter’s mandate has two principal areas of focus: providing specialist technical support to elite and emerging batters, and strengthening the capacity of regional and high-performance coaches to design and deliver effective individual batting programmes.

He will work closely with coaches to enhance the support available to elite players returning to their territories, while collaborating with CWI’s High-Performance team to develop batting modules for integration into the regional coaching pathway and delivery to coaches at every level.

Carter brings more than 30 years of elite coaching experience. Most recently, he served as high-performance coach with New Zealand Cricket from 2012 to 2025, supporting international and domestic player development, performance planning and talent identification.

He also served as head coach of the New Zealand women’s team from 2019 to 2022 and twice held the position of assistant coach with the men’s team. Earlier roles included head coaching stints with Canterbury and Wellington, as well as serving as director of cricket at Northamptonshire County Cricket Club in England.

CWI Director of Cricket Miles Bascombe said the appointment is intended to strengthen the region’s coaching system as much as its players.

“West Indies teams will participate in at least six global events over the next 24-30 months, including the Men’s World Cup Qualifier next February. The steps we take now are intended to lay the groundwork for success. Bob’s immediate job is to raise the technical standard heading into these events,” said Bascombe.

“But the measure of this appointment is not what our top six look like in 12 months. It is whether the coaches he works with come out of it better at teaching batting than they went in, and whether that reaches the coaching education modules the rest of the region is taught from. That is what lasts.”

The appointment forms part of CWI’s broader technical development programme and follows work by the Cricket Strategy and Officiating Committee, which identified specialist technical intervention and a stronger regional coaching system as priorities for the development of West Indies cricket.

Carter’s regional tour will provide an early opportunity to assess batting talent and coaching needs across the territories, while establishing the foundation for a coordinated technical programme capable of supporting players throughout the regional pathway.