By Ray Ford
Perhaps there is no outfit better than the West Indies cricket
team at optimistic, heartfelt commentary on failure. Maybe
there is no greater exponent at identifying all the positives
that can emanate from finishing second best in competitive sport than the regional side. And
at the center of this rhetoric of losing nestles Cricket West Indies whose decision-making
continues to confound.
For many, the coach of the regional team Phil Simmons has been found wanting time and
time again. In competitive professional sport, the accountability of players and coaches is at a
premium. Success is always the measure. And if the personalities associated with failure are
allowed to perpetuate that failure, then those at the center of the decision-making process
need to demit their responsibility.
Recently, the West Indies – one is tempted to say, predictably – lost a Twenty20 series to
relative minnows Ireland. Cricket purists might turn up their noses at this 20-overs slam, bam,
thank you ma’am version of the game. But since the West Indies have been failing at all
versions, the importance of defeat in the shortest format is magnified. Asked by the media
this week if he was concerned about his job as coach, Simmons had this to say: “If I start
worrying about my job then I have problems. I am worrying about the success of the team,
I am worrying about how we get players to play their roles and in playing their roles get the
team to be successful and that’s all I’m concerned about.”
The rhetoric sounded good on the surface but on closer examination, it is rather hollow.
Simmons’ job is, or at least should be, tied to the “success of the team”. And if you are
coaching a losing team, one that is very spasmodically successful, but you are not concerned
about keeping your job, then this speaks volumes about your employer.
However, Simmons went further with respect to his struggling charges and their entry into the
international game. “You come up here thinking you are able to play up here, but things are
not going the way they should do, so there must be some sort of responsibility taken from the
levels before us and that’s something that has to be addressed, generally, as an organisation.”
He then correctly emphasized that the onus was on the players to perform. “In saying that,
the guys, when they come up here, need to fight harder. They need to put more effort into
wanting to be the best in the world when they come up here.”
Simmons was absolutely correct. But what about the coach’s role? If batsmanship has been
identified as the problem across the Caribbean, then what are the coaches doing in the
formative stages of the boys and girls’ entry into the game, and what is Simmons doing to
assist those senior players under his charge? Has Simmons identified the chinks in the batting
techniques of the senior players? After many years in charge of the team, why is there
no discernible improvement in the techniques of the majority of the senior players? What
specifically is Simmons doing to justify that title “coach”?
Quizzed as to how he motivated himself as coach in view of the losses, Simmons responded
that he continued to enjoy his job as head coach.
Now, one would have forgiven a Freudian slip if he had responded that he continued to enjoy
his salary, but to state “my love for coaching and love for the players and their improvement
carries me a long way every day” seems perplexing. There ought to be few joys in persistent
failure. Indeed, the love for coaching and the players mixed with chronic failure seem the
ingredients for frustration, not enjoyment.
Apart from other issues plaguing the regional game such as lack of commitment to West
Indies cricket by a number of franchise cricket ‘stars’, standard of pitches, quality of
regional leagues and exposure for cricketers in other jurisdictions, there is a sense that our
international players are becoming too accustomed to the taste of defeat and it is no longer
bitter as it was perhaps three or four decades ago. West Indies have settled for small victories
and positive after-defeat speeches.
While most Barbadians and West Indians generally would have welcomed CWI’s decision
to remove the Roger Harper-led selection panel, the decision to replace Harper with The
Most Honourable Desmond Haynes is considered by many to be a waste of an excellent
coaching resource.
Haynes, along with fellow Barbadian Sir Gordon Greenidge, was considered among the
best technical players to wear West Indies maroon during his career. With West Indies
batsmanship in obvious crisis, one would have thought that Mr Haynes’ contribution to
regional cricket would have better served in a coaching capacity.
On that appointment, CWI president Ricky Skerritt noted that he was anxious for the regional
team “to benefit” from Haynes’ cricket knowledge. “His cricket knowledge and experience
are second to none, and I am confident that Desmond is the right man for the right job at
the right time,” Skerritt said.
The CWI chief ’s words were warm and welcoming but somehow seemed to be just more
rhetoric than purpose.