Hooper believes Windies cricket can bounce back

Former West Indies captain Carl Hooper says he can foresee the long struggling team bouncing back soon in world cricket as the young talent is surprisingly impressive.

"From what is being channelled into the development of West Indies cricket, we are certainly going in the right direction. Getting young cricketers involved and helping them in every way is certainly going in the right direction. It definitely will help. I can see us coming back up in world cricket," he said.

Hooper has been appointed batting coach of the Sagicor High Performance Centre and is amazed by the talent he has seen so far.

"The amount of talent I am seeing here (at the Sagicor HPC) has surprised me. I was away (from West Indies) for a while and you would see the game on television, but now that you get close and actually see the guys playing it is clear there is still a lot of talent around," the 44-year-old, who lives in Australia, was quoted as saying by the local media in Bridgetown, Barbados.

"Having an 'academy' is a great thing for West Indies cricket. The good thing about it is that you have your best young players assembled together and they get to work together as a team. The efforts and emphasis, as is being done, have to be placed on 'academies' at the developmental levels, if we are to see an improvement in the game," he added.

Hooper said the development programme is well-structured.

"The focus is to point the players in the right direction. Looking at a few of the guys, while there have very good hands and eyes -- which has been one of the strengths of

West Indians over the years -- we need to work on some of the footwork.

"This is an area that I will spend the next few months working on and trying to encourage the young batsmen to use their feet a bit more," Hooper explained.

Hooper played for the West Indies between 1987 and 2003, competing in 102 Test matches and 227 One-Day Internationals before retiring after the 2003 World Cup in South Africa.