Sir Viv blasts regional coaches

West Indies chief selector Sir Vivian Richards has blasted coaches in the Caribbean for not properly preparing young West Indian cricketers to make the transition to the international arena.

“When you see some of the guys who they are sending to you and who you are having a look at, some are not the final package,” Richards said in the latest edition of the Clico Cricket Quarterly magazine released in Barbados last week. “I am very disappointed with whatever are the criteria for helping some of these young individuals. I feel they are missing it at whatever level,” Sir Vivian added. Richards, the West Indies highest run-scorer in Test cricket with 8,540 runs, said several young cricketers in the Caribbean who represented their countries in the Carib Beer Series, are lacking the basics. “Guys come to you and don’t even know how to run between the wickets well. They don’t know how to take a particular catch. They don’t know if a ball is hit to you on the boundary with a certain bowler bowling and if the spin comes to you, which way it is going to spin and all that,” Richards lamented. “So I feel there is a lot to be done...They have got a lot to do in terms of what a coach’s job is all about and I haven’t quite seen the improvement in some of the individuals to take them to the very, very top,” he contended.

The former West Indies captain, who never lost a Test series while he led the regional side, noted that there are rudimentary things which should be done long before the players get into the Test or one-day side. “Some of these guys have to come and learn their skills through the coach at the very highest level of West Indies cricket when there are certain programmes put in place so guys can fall in place and become part of a system,” Richards remarked. Noting several elementary catches were dropped during the West Indies last tour of Asia when he accompanied the side, Richards questioned what the regional coaches are doing to remedy these faults. “These are some things we have to work seriously on in the future. “And there are some (coaches) who have a lot to say about who should be playing and who are not playing but I would say to them that they have a job to do rather than to talk,” Sir Vivian declared.