Roberts hits ‘harden’ players

ST JOHN’S: Former Test pacer Andy Roberts believes coaching the West Indies is difficult because players are averse to being told what to do.

Roberts, a former West Indies coach, believes successive West Indies coaches have encountered resistance from players because the region has not had a traditional coaching culture. He conceded that his tenure as coach from 1995 to 1996 was problematic. “It was difficult because having a coach was a new experience for West Indies cricket, Rohan (Kanhai) was just before me, and he had similar problems that the players would not listen,” Roberts said on CMC’s DHL CricketPlus lunch-time show yesterday. “Even now, I think Gus (Logie) may be having the some of the same problems, Roger Harper had those same problems, every coach that is appointed by the West Indies Cricket Board has similar problems,” he added.

Roberts, 52, believes the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) should institute measures to ensure that the function of coaching gets better support. “What we need is programmes now from an early age, where the player listens to the coach so that when that player reaches the highest level, they will listen to the coach. “If you look at the Australians, they listen to what John Buchanan tells them, because they believe that Buchanan is there to help them. “Our players do not believe in the coach,” said Roberts, who played 47 Test matches and took 202 wickets at an average of 25.61. Some players, Roberts said, are unwilling to accept advice and instructions from coaches, and the regional game suffers as a result. “Some players think that they are above being spoken to, so they do as they please.

“They are not coachable because they were never coached before, a lot of (these) players  were never told what to do. “Somebody is sitting down, looking at the game, reading the game, analysing what needs to be done and make suggestions to the player, and he doesn’t want to accept it,” Roberts said. Roberts, the 1975 Wisden “Cricketer of the Year,” complained that players in the Caribbean rise to the level of international cricket with glaring technical deficiencies. “You cannot change technique at international level because the same way that I am seeing these faults it’s the same way the opposition is seeing the faults, and the opposition are able to exploit it,” Roberts said.