Cameron: A local can become Windies next coach

Caribbean coach­es will get the first choice when it comes to choos­ing the next head coach of the Windies team, ac­cord­ing to the pres­i­dent of Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) Dave Cameron.

The Windies boss in St. Lu­cia for the ICC World Cup T20 Tour­na­ment told Guardian Sports that, “We are go­ing to give our re­gion­al coach­es the first choice of be­ing ap­point­ed when it comes to fill­ing the po­si­tion of head coach of the Windies team.

“We will soon em­bark on a pro­gramme of screen­ing and if any one of the re­gion­al can­di­dates can fill the re­quire­ments for the role, they will get the po­si­tion rest as­sured. Peo­ple have to un­der­stand that be­ing a head coach of the Windies team is a man­age­ment po­si­tion and it is about man­ag­ing the play­ers prop­er­ly. Who­ev­er is giv­en the job must un­der­stand that they need to be in charge and take the team along a cer­tain path to suc­cess. They must en­sure that the play­ers are not al­lowed to be big­ger than the game. None of us must think that we are big­ger than the game. We have to serve the game in the best in­ter­est of the West In­dies and the West In­di­an peo­ple. If the re­gion­al can­di­dates can­not fit our re­quire­ments then and on­ly then, we will look at bring­ing some­one from the out­side.”

Windies are with­out a head coach at the mo­ment be­cause coach Stu­art Law has re­signed to take up a po­si­tion with Mid­dle­sex Coun­ty Crick­et team. At the mo­ment Nic Pothas who has been part of the coach­ing set up with the team has tak­en over in an in­ter­im ca­pac­i­ty. The board will soon start the search for a coach as the team heads in­to the World Cup in Eng­land next year.

Cameron said that there are many op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able for those in­ter­est­ed in terms of de­vel­op­ing as coach­es in the re­gion and he wants to en­cour­age peo­ple to take them. “We must al­ways take ad­van­tage of the op­por­tu­ni­ties pro­vid­ed to us and there are plen­ty as far as de­vel­op­ment is con­cerned with coach­ing in the re­gion. We must have men clam­our­ing for the top coach­ing jobs, oth­er than us hav­ing to look else­where.”

So far, leg­endary for­mer West In­dies cap­tain Sir Vi­vian Richards be­lieves that Desmond Haynes is the right man to suc­ceed Stu­art Law as head coach of the re­gion­al team.

The 62-year-old Haynes has in­di­cat­ed his will­ing­ness to take over at the helm once Law, who re­signed late Sep­tem­ber, va­cates the po­si­tion at the end of the Windies’ cur­rent tour of Bangladesh.

Sir Viv said Haynes, who is wide­ly re­gard­ed as one of the best open­ers of all time, would bring a win­ning men­tal­i­ty and a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence.

“The play­ers have squan­dered beau­ti­ful po­si­tions, and I think that is be­cause they have lacked some­one with a sol­id base of suc­cess and win­ning. Desmond has been there, done that. He knows how to win,” Sir Viv said.

Haynes and fel­low Bar­ba­di­an Gor­don Greenidge formed what many con­sid­er to be the best open­ing pair in crick­et his­to­ry.

He played 116 Test match­es for the West In­dies with an av­er­age of 42.29 and he al­so played in 238 ODIs where he av­er­aged 41.37.

In fact, Sir Viv said he felt it was im­por­tant that the head coach should come from the Caribbean.

He main­tained that coach­es from out­side of the re­gion some­times did not ful­ly un­der­stand the Windies’ play­ers and point­ed to the fact that there had not been much suc­cess from those ap­point­ments.

“I would love to see a Caribbean per­son in that po­si­tion. We have had these over­seas coach­es, but I have not seen the ben­e­fit of that as yet. We have spent a fair bit of mon­ey on them, and we have not seen the progress you would ex­pect,” Sir Viv said.

“I would love to give it (head coach) to some­one who has been close to the suc­cess­es of the past be­cause I think the play­ers are lack­ing that in­for­ma­tion. I won’t be singing my own prais­es, but if some­one feels I can help … the CWI has ig­nored play­ers like me over the years.”