CAVE HILL, Barbados – Floyd Reifer said the Combined Campuses & Colleges will look to remain a competitive side in the Regional 4-Day and Super50 Tournaments in the face of their obvious challenge of the revolving nature of their squad.
The CCC player/coach said the composite side was proud of what it had achieved in senior regional competitions since it was conceptualised five years ago and they were looking for another solid performance.
"Judging success for us is being competitive," said Reifer. "Once we are competitive, we will be satisfied. We also want to win a few matches because we strongly believe that this is a part of development.
"Our aim is to play competitively enough that puts us in a position to win every game, but if we do not win every game, our aim is to be competitive and for individual players to put in some very good performances."
He added: "Ultimately, we want to be a side that when teams turn up to play us, they have to play sound cricket to beat us.
"Our preparations for the 4-Day and RS50 are going well. We would have loved a little bit more time to prepare the squad, but we have been making full use of the time that we have and so far things are going well."
Reifer said the biggest challenge will be to assimilate the new players into the squad, but the Caribbean Twenty20 staged earlier this month helped the process.
"It is about rebuilding for our programme and trying to get the players to be fit and ready to play the four-day and 50 overs-a-side game," he said.
"We have done a lot for cricket in the West Indies since our introduction. We have had a number of players that have been regular members of West Indies A-Teams and some have played for their territories after being given a good base here.
"We have not done too badly as a team over the years. It’s just a reality that we cannot have a squad together for two or three years to maximise the quality of the players, but it is a development programme and we are looking to develop players for the territories and West Indies cricket overall."
Reifer said he was looking forward to the challenge that the new format for the season brings with the teams alternating between the two versions of the game.
"It will be important for teams to manage their players and use a system of rotation for the bowlers, so they won’t suffer from burn-out towards the end of the season," he said.
"I’m looking forward to the 4-Day and RS50. We have players like our captain Kyle Corbin; there is Raymond Reifer, Chadwick Walton, Kevin McClean, Ryan Austin and Akeem Dewar all capable of match-winning performance."
CCC finished sixth in the 4-Day Tournament last year and narrowly missed out on a place in the Final Four in the previous edition of the RS50 two years ago.