ANDY ROBERTS posed a particularly pertinent question in the aftermath of Phil Simmons’ suspension as West Indies coach.
Why the rush to install Eldine Baptiste as interim coach for the tour of Sri Lanka? Roberts wanted to know.
The pioneer of Clive Lloyd’s fast bowling arsenal in the late 1970s had himself been sacked as coach after a year, following the West Indies stunning loss to Kenya in the the 1996 World Cup. He was replaced by Lloyd.
His comment at the time is apt now. “A lot of these decisions are taken by people who do not really understand cricket,” he said. “It’s one thing to read about cricket, it’s another thing to understand it.”
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) stated that the responsibilities of the head coach would pass to Baptiste “until the matter is cleared up”.
It noted that he was already assigned to Sri Lanka as the selector-on-tour, hinting that it was a money-saving arrangement. Yet Stuart Williams, the assistant coach, is also there. He filled in as head coach for the tour of South Africa and the World Cup following the sacking of Ottis Gibson just over a year ago while the WICB waited for Simmons’ availability at the end of his eight highly acclaimed years with Ireland.
The remaining members of the coaching staff, Andre Coley and Sir Curtly Ambrose, are also there.
The indication is that, if the Simmons matter is not “cleared up” within the WICB’s deadline of seven working days, Baptiste would be ready to take over. It is known that he had initially applied for the job that eventually went to Simmons; his coaching credentials include his time in charge of the Stanford All Stars in their US$20 million victory over England in 2009, a brief period with Kenya, stints with a couple of South African provinces and, latterly, in charge of the Leeward Islands.
The Antiguan all-rounder had ten Tests with the invincible West Indies team of the 1980s and, apart from the Leewards, also played for two South African provinces and Northamptonshire in the English county championship.
He is one of the three selectors, along with Courtney Walsh and Courtney Browne, who thwarted Simmons and panel chairman Lloyd in their effort to reinstate Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard to the ODI squad. His elevation, brief as it may be, strengthens his status in the hierarchy of the West Indies team. As he starts from scratch, his relationships with the players is necessarily short of those established by Williams and, already, by Simmons.
Roberts’ other point was that, if Simmons felt as strongly as he did over the issue, he should have resigned before releasing his exasperation and anger to the media on the eve of the team’s departure for Sri Lanka.
Simmons said then even “an exceptional speech” to the selectors by Lloyd, their chairman, explaining why he felt it was time the two were back in the squad, could not shift the defiant three. It was a significant u-turn by the former West Indies captain who headed the same panel that dropped them in the first place, a decision he had strongly defended.
Simmons claimed, on solid evidence, that captain Jason Holder, who is not a selector, supported their call for the return of Bravo and Pollard.
He was at a loss to understand how the wishes of the coach, the captain and the chief selector, who are ultimately accountable for performances on the field, could be overturned by three selectors with only a peripheral bearing on the team’s results. He looked elsewhere for answers, charging “too much interference from outside in the selection of the ODI squad”.
The response from the WICB, through chief executive officer Michael Muirhead, was swift and inevitable. The management, he said, “had taken action to suspend the head coach, pending an investigation into the issue”.
His self-aggrandising follow-up was simply ridiculous.
“We are trying to manage the business of West Indies cricket in a very particular professional manner,” he said. “Integrity and professionalism are high on our agenda and we will not compromise on that.”
Really, Mr CEO?
What was professional about the sacking by former head coach Ottis Gibson last September through a telephone call from the president?
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) certainly saw neither integrity nor professionalism in the manner of the withdrawal of the team from last year’s tour of India,
slating the WICB for its “inability to resolve internal issues with its players and allowing the same to affect an ongoing bilateral series” while handing it a still unresolved US$42 million compensation claim.
Was it professionalism or ill will for the president to publicly announce that one of the WICB directors, Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) president Billy Heaven, would have to appear before the ethics committee, a claim never communicated to Heaven or any other board member and of which nothing further has been heard.
And what of your own repeated reports that the BCCI’s US$42million claim would soon be resolved following continuing negotiations that had, in fact, never taken place? That appears to be simply disingenuous.
And so on and so forth.
Simmons did not resign, as Roberts and others believed he should have. He clearly had reason to.
Lloyd, his one colleague among the selectors, has now scolded him, declaring that “we cannot condone such outbursts”. It has brought an apology to the selectors for what he termed his moment of “madness”. It is an indication that he will be similarly penitent to the WICB.
If reinstated, his authority within the team has been compromised. He can hardly be as enthusiastic as when he so optimistically assumed the role back in March.
