West Indies cricket board caught napping

The procrastination typical of the West Indies Cricket Board WICB has left the team without a head coach for a home series against Bangladesh that should be ideal preparation ahead of the tough away assignments against India and South Africa and the World CupIt had five and a half weeks after the last international engagement against New Zealand in the Caribbean in June and July in which to remove Ottis Gibson after four undistinguished years in the post and give his replacement the two Tests three ODIs and one T20 International against the lowly Bangladeshis to settle inOttis Gibson during West Indies practice session at Lords in 2012 PicAFPTwelve days earlier it had changed its selection panel making Clive Lloyd the iconic captain of the 70s and 80s as chairman and including Courtney Walsh West Indiesrsquo leading wickettakerIn Gibsonrsquos case it waited until a day before the opening match Wednesdayrsquos ODI in Grenada to acknowledge that the two had ldquomutually agreed to terminate their association with immediate effectrdquo By then it was already a widely known factThe upshot has been the unsatisfactory situation of the team manager former captain Richie Richardson pressed into doubling up as interim coach until there is a permanent appointment That in itself has inevitably created unhelpful speculation over who that might beThe delay was accompanied by the ambiguity and confusion that are other hallmarks of the way the WICB conducts its affairsPoor recordGiven West Indiesrsquo dismal record under him a wonlost ratio of 916 in 29 Tests 3648 in 90 ODIs 2221 in 45 T20Is Gibsonrsquos eventual demise was coming for some time it was widely predicted after the heavy defeats in India and New Zealand late last year and the later 12 loss in home Tests to New Zealand It was obvious by his absence as the team assembled in Grenada on Sunday three days prior to the opening match against Bangladesh that his time was upThatrsquos where the familiar doublespeak kicked inImmediately the boardrsquos marketing and communications manager Imran Khan asserted that Gibson was still head coach adding the puzzling rider that an announcement ldquoin relation to a number of changesrdquo would be made next dayWhen none was forthcoming the media called WICB president Dave Cameron for clarification He acknowledged that Gibson was indeed not in Grenada as anyone interested could tell him he added that he could ldquoneither confirm or denyrdquo reports that he had been fired Late Tuesday the terse announcement finally came from the board that Gibson was no longer head coachNewspaper headlines reflected the perplexity The Barbados Nationrsquos on successive days were lsquoStill Gibsonrsquo lsquoGibson gonersquo and the finality lsquoGibson gonersquo The Londonbased Times carried the story under the banner lsquoGibson walks out on West Indiesrsquo The Stabroek News of Guyana took the middle road lsquoGibson WICB sever tiesrsquo It is still not known whether or not Gibson walked before he was pushedSo while the well travelled 45yearold Barbadian moves on mdash with the WICB offering its ldquobest wishes in all his future endeavoursrdquo mdash the hunt is on for a new man to take chargeArthur in frayOne Trinidad newspaper conjectured that Richard Pybus the Englishman appointed the WICBrsquos director of cricket will make the recommendation It reported that he had already met with Mickey Arthur the South African dismissed as Australiarsquos coach last year making him the front runner Arthur was one of the five overseas coaches in the recently concluded Caribbean Premier League CPLIf Pybus does put his name forward it would be a complete contradiction of his comments contained in his report to the WICB in MarchldquoThe introduction of coaches from other cricket cultures the Australians Bennett King and John Dyson were West Indies head coaches between 2004 and 2010 and players having single rooms on tour brought about changes in the team culture that manifested in a breaking down of the natural handing on of Caribbean cricket wisdom senior player to junior playerrdquo he wroteldquoInformal coaching by elite cricketers was replaced by formal coaching from an alien culture with a different values systemhellip Confusion over the natural Caribbean way of playing and coaching emergedrdquoThe WICB has not either confirmed or denied whether it would again turn to ldquoformal coaching from an alien culture with a different values systemrdquo16 The number of Tests West Indies lost under Ottis GibsonTony Cozier continues to be the voice of West Indies cricket