‘Understudy needed for King’

BRIDGETOWN: Top regional cricket commentator Tony Cozier believes the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) should employ an understudy for new West Indies coach Bennett King.  In his weekly column in the Sunday Sun newspaper, Cozier stated that without a regional coach inserted in the current staff, led by the King, the benefits that the highly respected Aus-tralian is bringing to the position of team coach would be lost to the region when he leaves. King, Cozier says, has understandably surrounded himself with Australians —  David Moore (assistant) coach and Stephen Partridge (physiotherapist), while Darren Holder, a third Australian, had already installed as coaching manager when King and Moore arrived.

“He has been accorded such supremo status by the WICB that he is not only head coach but also chief selector and tactician, even above the captain. Like no one West Indian before him —  captain, coach, manager, board president —  he is the one to be held responsible for the team’s performance. “His job depends on it so it follows that he would want those he knows and trusts as his support staff on his first overseas assignment,” the veteran writer and broadcaster stated. Still, Cozier thinks there should be room for a West Indian in the mix. “King’s own experience verifies the value of apprenticeship. He himself served at Queensland under John Buchanan, now highly rated coach of mighty Australia.”

Moore came up under King at the Australian Academy.  “The West Indian identified as the future team coach should be doing the same right now,” Cozier said. The 39-year-old King comes to the coaching position with a successful record.  Before his Caribbean assignment, he was head of the Commonwealth Bank Cricket Academy in Australia, the leading institution of its kind in the cricket world. He joined the academy after guiding the Australian State team Queensland to three consecutive championships from 1999/2000 to 2001/2002. King is currently leading a three-week camp in Barbados for the West Indies squad, in preparation for their participation in the VB triangular one-day series with Pakistan and hosts Australia in January-February. (CMC)