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 centre of this rhetoric of losing nestles Cricket West Indies whose decision-making continues to confound.
For many, coach of the regional team Phil Simmons has been found wanting time and time again. In competitive professional sport, 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 centre 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 emphasised 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.
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