Former West Indies and Jamaica all-rounder Chris Gayle hopes to revive his academy geared towards fostering grass-roots development in 2023.

The Chris Gayle Academy was initially launched in London in 2013 before it made its way to Jamaica in 2014, being operated at his boyhood Lucas Cricket Club under the supervision of the late coach Dennis Miller but has been dormant since the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Gayle, one of the region’s most successful cricketers in all formats of the game, hinted in an interview with OnlyCricket24.com that mismanagement has crippled his academy but said he wants to get it back on track.

“You have to be careful how you let people handle stuff,” Gayle said.

“This year I’m trying to get these things back up and running. We don’t want to see the kids go astray, so I have an academy and [we want] to assist in whatever way,” the 43-year-old added.

Other academies have launched in recent times including the 4Milla Academy, which opened in November 2021 under the tutelage of former West Indies and Jamaica spinner Nikita Miller.

The Kingston Wharves under-15 competition, a tool used to discover some of Jamaica’s top cricketers for more than three decades, has also returned in 2022 after being side-lined by the pandemic.