‘Blame players, not the coaches’

KINGSTON, Jamaica – Players more than the coaches have to take responsibility for West Indies failures on the cricket field, former fast bowler Sir Andy Roberts has suggested.

Although stressing the importance of coaches to the development of players in the game, the 71-year said they were getting the short end of the stick.

“They have someone to blame, they’re blaming the coaches,” Sir Andy, a former West Indies Cricket Board selector, asserted in an interview with the Jamaica Observer newspaper.

His comments came as the region waits to hear from Cricket West Indies (CWI) who will take over the head coach role following the resignation of Phil Simmons after the Caribbean side crashed out of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup last October.

Simmons stayed on for the West Indies’ tour of Australia which also ended in defeat, and Andre Coley has since been appointed interim head coach, even as CWI awaits a report from a three-man independent panel it set up to undertake a comprehensive review of West Indies’ first-round exit from the tournament.

Sir Andy contended that coaching was being made a scapegoat for the regional side’s poor performances and the attention was not being paid to what really mattered.

“How come we didn’t make five changes for the One-Day International team? We lost 2-0 in Australia; how come we didn’t make five changes to the Test team?” he questioned.

“My emphasis doesn’t depend on coaching. It depends on the players shouldering the responsibility to develop their game to the point that all the coach has to do is to make sure they go through their drills.”

Sir Andy, the first Antiguan to play Test cricket for the West Indies, suggested that the focus of coaching should be on developing the younger cricketers, as there were too many players who lacked understanding of the fundamentals of cricket.

“We have to get this right and try to develop our players from Under-15s up to the senior level. They are the ones who have to get it right. That is where you need your best coaches, not at the Test match level. At that level, you need somebody who can plan the game, who has an eye for the game and I don’t think that we have too many students of the game playing today,” the former West Indies player said. (CMC)