Earlier this year, he won the 2024 Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League (CPL) with coach Daren Sammy and West Indies opener Johnson Charles, but former West Indies Under-19 captain Ackeem Auguste is making his next move, thriving at a development camp in India.
Aged 21, Auguste is among a septet of West Indies batters 25 or younger who are at the Super Kings academy in Chennai. West Indies Academy head coach Ramesh Subasinghe, West Indies Under-19 coach Rohan Nurse, and Super Kings academy coach Sriram Krishnamurthy are overseeing their progress.
“It’s been good so far in Chennai, trying to adapt to new surfaces and incorporate into my game,” Auguste said. “I think for both black and red clay, you need to come up with a game plan and try to stick to it as much as possible. Naturally, I sweep, so it comes naturally to me here too. So, just deciding on which sweep I’d want to play – a paddle sweep, reverse sweep, or just a hard conventional sweep.”
Auguste was the standout batter in a two-day match played on Tuesday and Wednesday, scoring a pair of eighties amid inhospitable humidity, but he was disappointed not to score a big hundred.
“I would have liked to at least convert one or if not both, but I think just taking in whatever we did in practice and just trying to incorporate it into the game and just sticking to a game plan for as long as possible, I felt like that worked out pretty well for me on the day,” Auguste said. “But I think I should have probably tried to convert one, but if I was told I would have gotten these scores, then I would take it.”
West Indies are using this camp to expose their batsmen to red-and-black-soil pitches and every variety of spin, including wristspin and mystery spin. CSK made the practice games more competitive by calling up some Tamil Nadu players, including Hong Kong-born ambidextrous wristspinner Jhathavedh Subramanyan, who was part of Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2024.
Subasinghe, who has also worked with New Zealand’s emerging players, reckons that greater exposure such as this stint in Chennai will ensure that the young players are better equipped to cope with the pressure of international cricket.
With West Indies not playing too many ‘A’ team tournaments, and lacking a robust player-development structure at the level below international cricket, Subasinghe sees this Chennai camp as a “creative” way to nurture their emerging players.
Photo: Saint Lucia’s Ackeem Auguste (second left) is training in Chennai. Image credit: CSK
