West Indies pace great Andy Roberts has lashed out at Caribbean cricket administrators for appointing a South African u00c3u00a2u00c2u0080u00c2u0094 Alfonso Thomas - as bowling coach. "Well, well, well," initially exclaimed Antigua-based Roberts
Andy Roberts
West Indies pace great Andy Roberts has lashed out at Caribbean cricket administrators for appointing a South African — Alfonso Thomas — as bowling coach. "Well, well, well," initially exclaimed Antigua-based Roberts, 67, when mid-day spoke to him over the phone recently. "Nothing about West Indies' cricket administration surprises me anymore — it's only the players' performance on the field," Roberts said when asked to react to the news of the new bowling coach. "The Board does not know what they are doing," the former fast bowler, who represented West Indies from 1974 to 1983, remarked. He claimed 202 Test wickets and visited India twice (1974-75 and 1983-84) as a player.
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Alfonso Thomas
Roberts was coach of the Caribbeans during the 1996 World Cup held in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Richie Richardson's team then reached the semi-finals where they lost to runners-up Australia in Chandigarh. When pressed to comment on the hurtful aspect of not picking West Indians who were famous for their pace exploits, Roberts said: "The hurtful part is that our nation dominated Test cricket for 15 consecutive years (1980 to 1995 when West Indies did not lose a single Test series) and this decision [of selecting a South African bowling coach with no Test experience] shows that there is some contempt towards West Indies players by the Board," roared Roberts.
Thomas represented South Africa in a solitary T20 International. "The former Somerset limited-overs captain, who is ninth on the list of most successful T20 bowlers, has also played in the IPL, BBL and the BPL, with 263 T20 wickets to his name," reported ESPNCricinfo. It can be recalled the West Indies Cricket Board sacked Curtly Ambrose as bowling consultant last year and replaced him with Barbados' Roddy Estwick. The reason for Ambrose's sacking was that the powers needed someone "more technical."
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