Graeme West, the current Cricket West Indies (CWI) high-performance manager, is set to take over as director of high performance at Cricket Ireland (CI).
In his stint with CWI that started in 2012, West worked closely with young talent from across the West Indies, and in 2016 was coach of the West Indies team that lifted the Under-19 World Cup. After working with the U-19 and 'A' teams, his current role as high-performance manager included the setting up of academy programmes and building a pool of coaches. He is expected to have a similar profile in Ireland, starting next month.
Before joining CWI, West spent five years at the Middlesex academy. There, he worked with Ireland internationals Paul Stirling, Andy Balbirnie, Andrew Poynter and Stuart Poynter. West has not played any top-flight cricket, but holds a Level 4 ECB coaching qualification.
"I am delighted to be joining Cricket Ireland as the organisation continues to grow and strengthen," West said in a statement. "The Strategic Plan for 2024-27 is incredibly exciting and I look forward to applying my experience and philosophy to the wealth of talent and expertise that has been assembled as we further establish Ireland as a major cricketing nation."
Warren Deutrom, the chief executive at CI, said the appointment was a step towards Ireland becoming a "fit-for-purpose Full Member".
"When we set out to create and recruit for the role, the profile, initiative and experience that Graeme possesses is exactly what we were looking for," Deutrom said. "We knew that in order to be successful in this new role, the candidate required leadership experience, exceptional people skills and the ability to be a mentor as much as a manager. In Graeme, we believe we have found that candidate.
"As an organisation, we are going through a process of reviewing and evolving our operations to ensure we are fit-for-purpose as a Full Member in a rapidly changing environment. One of the strategic decisions we made was to acknowledge the scale and scope of our work has outgrown our pre-Full Member structures."
The senior men's team have a busy few weeks ahead, with a white-ball tour of the UAE to play South Africa later this month. The senior women's team is set to host England for three ODIs and two ODIs starting Saturday.