Bad stroke in cricket coach

ASK ANY West Indies fan this question: What really is the great problem or weakness of our cricket, what accounts for our consistent failure in the Test arena? We feel sure in the vast majority of cases the answer will be couched in two words: Our bowling. The inescapable fact is that since the pair of fast bowlers Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrowse left the scene, the once dreaded Windies pace attack has lost its ferocity and penetration and we have had to settle for a changing quartet of ordinary, even mediocre, quickies.  

Basically, we have produced the batting talent to match the best in the world, but unfortunately we no longer have the quality of fast bowlers needed to skittle out the opposition as we once did. We make this obvious point to ask another question: In such a scenario, do we really need a foreign coach to tell us what we already know? In any case, what can an outsider possibly do to rectify our bowling weakness? Is he coming with some kind of magic wand to create clones of Walsh, Ambrose, Holding, Marshall, Garner, Croft, Roberts or Hall? In curtailing Gus Logie’s contract six months before its termination date and by opting to replace him with another foreign coach, the West Indies Cricket Board, in our view, is jeopardising the future of our game at a crucial time, immediately after the success we have achieved by our confidence-building victory in the ICC Championship Trophy tournament.

More than a year ago, when the WICB first decided to engage a foreign coach, naming manager of the Australian Cricket Academy Bennett King for the job, with Logie as his assistant, the Board received quite an embarrassment when King declined to take up the post which was publicised before he could inform the Academy’s authorities. Now, again without offering WI cricket lovers an explanation or rationale for hiring a foreign coach, the WICB has chosen an outsider for the job.

Why? To put it bluntly, we do not see the need to have a foreign coach for our players. In terms of the improvement of our game, having such a coach is not an urgent priority. We know what our problems are and we feel sure they can be solved by using the experience and expertise we have developed over the years. If we are to focus on enhancing the effectiveness of our bowlers, then perhaps we can engage a coach specifically for this purpose from among the coterie of our own great performers, such as Walsh, Ambrose, and Holding who are all now totally lost to the game. We can only assume that our dismal performance against South Africa and England in the Test arena was the reason for the Board’s decision to remove Logie but what about our impressive win in the ICC championships? Does that bright victory not say something in his favour? Could it not be that his efforts were now beginning to tell?

But even if the Board felt the need to replace him, why not rely on our own with such ex-stars as Richie Richardson, Larry Gomes, Bryan Davis, Phil Simmons and Jeffrey Dujon to choose from. We must also take the point made by Sir Gary Sobers in disagreeing with the idea of a foreign coach who, he noted, would not have an appreciation of WI cricketing culture and would have to spend a lot of time getting to know the various countries of the region, their administrators and their players. Finally, we wonder about the wisdom of investing the foreign coach with the absolute authority to select the team to play in any given match. In this important exercise, he will now have the power to override the say of both the captain and the manager who were previously responsible for this function. It appears to us that this can make for disagreements and even conflicts which could not only be counter-productive but harmful at a time when levels of morale and cohesion among the players are high. Last question: Who coached our great batting stars of the past? A foreigner?