No one could ever imagine Liverpool could have an impact on West Indian cricket – but thanks to Dave Goodall, that has certainly been the case.
Especially given the history of cricket in the Caribbean with the likes of Sir Viv Richards, Malcolm Marshall and Brian Lara all plying their trade there.
Goodall has been a coach for years, starting out in 1999 as a volunteer coach at Wavertree thanks to his son starting to play the sport.
From there came a move to Lancashire County Cricket Club, where Goodall became a community coach, helping kids to learn the game of cricket in the Merseyside region.
However, this wouldn’t lead to Goodall making the best find of his career.
Instead that came in a place with white sandy beaches and where rum is the biggest export, The Caribbean.
“I’ve been playing cricket all my life, and I went to Barbados on a seniors cricket tour back in 2009.
“At the time I was working for Lancashire as the community cricket coach in Liverpool.
“It was a job that I had got based on my volunteer coaching I had done at Wavertree Cricket Club that I started in 1999.
“During the first match, some guy approached me and we started talking about Lancashire as he played cricket there and had a lot of positive things to say about the place.
“It turned out he was part of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) and he was the chair of the placements and scholarships committee!
“He turned around and said he had a proposal for me and asked if we could build a link between the BCA and the Lancashire Cricket Board (LCB) to enable their best two under 19s players to come and play league cricket in England under the Lord Gavron Scholarship Award.”
The original plan was to have the players ply their trade in Greater Manchester – a city known for cricket and where Lancashire calls home thanks to their Emirates Old Trafford ground.
However, this soon changed and we saw Caribbean flair touchdown onto Merseyside, with two Barbadians playing in the Liverpool Competition League each year.
The highest standard of cricket on Merseyside.
But Goodall remembers how the plan changed.
“These lads would come over and help me in the community coaching as in the past overseas players were bored Sunday-Friday as there was nothing else to do.
“It was then decided that these lads would play in Liverpool so Shane Dorwich went to Sefton Park and Miguel Cummins went to Wavertree.”
After coming over in 2010 and 2012, both players made their Windies test debuts in 2016 against India and 2015 against Australia.
The pinnacle of the sport.
Cummins went to Goodall’s club Wavertree, and he told us about the talent the Barbadian quick possessed.
“When Miguel was bowling he was quick, so quick that the wicker keeper would be stood on the boundary, he was the sort of bowler that would open for a test side, he was only 17 at the time.”
As mentioned earlier, both players have gone on to have great careers in the game, Dorwich has gone on to play 35 tests in his career so far, scoring three 100’s at an average of 29.07.
His highest score being 125* coming against Sri Lanka in 2018.
Cummins hasn’t had as successful career internationally as he would of liked, but he has still played 14 tests for the Windies, his best figures being 6/48.
Cummins wasn’t finished in England after Wavertree, he signed for Worcestershire in 2016 before moving to Middlesex in 2019.
He also finished the 2021 season at Kent, who had a disappointing 2021.
Listen to the full interview below.
