Caricom needs to act now to save West Indies cricket

In the wake of the sacking of West Indies head coach, Phil Simmons former England International player Monte Lynch is urging Caricom to act now and not take a back seat and continue to watch on.

Lynch an accomplished first class player of 18,325 runs from 359 first class matches weighed in on the issue during an interview with Guyana Times Sport yesterday. “Mr. Mitchell and Co. needs to get their act together and sort this out, governments need to get involved and sort this out, don’t take a back seat and watch what is going on and ignore it because the time has come now for somebody to do something about it. If u look at the regime and how it has gone you will not sit back and watch on.”

On Tuesday in a WICB release that reached the media the Board detailed its reason for Simmons’ removal which are differences in culture and strategic approach. According to the said release, the decision was made on Saturday, September 10, in a meeting of the Board of Directors in Dominica.

The full print reads, “Effectively immediately, the WICB today announced it has separated from the Head Coach Phil Simmons. In a meeting of the Board of Directors, on Saturday, September 10, this decision was taken.

According to Lynch, Simmons was doing reasonably well but due to the standard of cricket in the Region when he took over the team’s progression would have taken some time.

“I would say he was doing reasonably well. Obviously it is different because there were no system in place for him. Regional cricket is at a low and coming into it I’m sure he would have been surprised to see the standard of the Leeward Island’s cricket, the Windward Island’s cricket, the standard of cricket here (in Guyana) has deteriorated so much. I had a blessing in 1983 where I came and play cricket and it was under Clive Lloyd in a team without much big names but yet we won through team spirit and I think Simmons, given the chance, would have done well because he had the respect of the players and that is the first thing you need and I think that was going reasonably well too.”

Lynch, who represented Gloucestershire and Surrey in his hay days is of the view that in order for the Regional team to progress the system must be sorted out immediately. He said that there was an academy in Barbados for six years, that academy produced one decent Test player, in Kraigg Braithwaite.

He went on to inform that he knows four players from Guyana, who were there and came out with zilch; Trevon Griffith, Ronsford Beaton, Brandon Bess and Rajendra Chandrika and they have come out with nothing basically, so that needs to be sorted out and all the (players) technical work needs to be done when they are in their academies.

In addition, he made reference to the Curly Ambrose’s sacking as bowling coach shortly after the team triumph at the World T20. “Looking back at the board’s decision to remove Ambrose as the bowling coach on the basis that they needed a coach who is more technical. It shows what system we are dealing with because a player supposed to learn the technical aspect from the youthful part of his career while at the Test level they must be able to take wickets and score runs.”

In general the sacking of Simmons was no shock for Lynch because of the rocky relationship shared between Simmons and the Board. “Firstly I think it is very sad, I don’t think it would have come as a surprise to many people when you see the way the board handle things is either their way or the highway. I don’t think if you hire somebody you should look to dictate to them as far as the selection of the team and other concerns, I know you have selection committee and things like that but I think they could have worked in a closer proximity and got things sorted out”, said the former right handed batsman.

According to the former TDO of Guyana’s cricket, he knows Simmons intention was for the best interest of West Indies cricket but unfortunately that is not the case. “I know things didn’t start on the right foot but knowing him and speaking to him here when West Indies played Australia, he had good ideas and he was looking forward for a bright future with West Indies Cricket.”

He further lamented that the culture of cricket here is lacking professionalism and that must improve among the players and administrators if cricket in the Region is to move forward. “A lot of it is attitude, I came down here five years ago and got involve with cricket in Guyana it lasted 1 ½ months. I spoke with Otis Gibson when he came down here (Caribbean) and like Simmons it is difficult when you come out of a professional setup, like Otis with England and Simmons with Ireland, to find things done haphazardly, it is difficult to accept and the professionalism as well, we lack that here.”

On players’ development the Georgetown Cricket Club coach vented his disgust to see the void between players here and elsewhere. “Spoke with Fudadin about Alistair Cook who is now the England skipper and the level he’s at. Both players played at the same youth world cup. Another example is Steven Jacobs and Virat Kohli, who played in the same youth world cup. There is such a big void between your development, look where those players are and look where ours are now. Joel Garner went on air the other day to say playing T20 is the issue but according to Lynch that’s a feeble excuse since everyone else plays T20, the system is wrong.”