NEW WEST INDIES’ manager Richie Richardson is known for playing down losses.
When he was captain of the regional cricket team, he said the Windies’ World Cup loss to Kenya in 1996 was “just another match”. Now that he is serving in a different capacity, Richardson isn’t too perturbed either about the non-selection of former captains Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle for the opening matches of the Digicel home series against Pakistan.
“There is nothing like experience but at the end of the day, we have young, talented players who we have seen come to the fore in recent times so I don’t see any reason why they can’t do the same thing again,” Richardson told NATIONSPORT in an interview at the 3Ws Oval on Saturday, while the new-look Windies squad played two Twenty20 tune-up matches.
“I’m happy with what we have here and we are focusing on what’s ahead of us and we are confident, we are positive and that’s just exactly how we are going forward,” Richardson said.
The Antiguan, who scored 5 949 runs in 86 Tests at an average of 44.39, said he was also generally pleased with the players’ behaviour, attitude and commitment.
“It is true that things were different in the past [but] we let them know exactly where we’ve got to go, what we expect from them and we really haven’t had too many problems to deal with,” Richardson said.
“The guys fully understand where we are coming from and where we want to go; so we are very comfortable,” he added.
Richardson dismissed reports of lack of commitment in the West Indies team during the World Cup and a rift between coach Ottis Gibson and senior players Chanderpaul, Sarwan, Gayle and left-arm spinner Sulieman Benn, who has also been excluded.
“I’m going to be very careful with what I say because when I got there [in Sri Lanka] at first, I saw something that I didn’t expect.”
Richardson, who compiled 37 centuries in his first-class career, 16 of them at the Test level and five more in One-Day Internationals, put it down to tiredness from a long trip from the Caribbean.
“Everybody looked relatively lethargic when we got to Sri Lanka . . . but very quickly the guys started to become really comfortable with themselves, started training and things started improving gradually from Sri Lanka going into the World Cup,” he said.
