Dear Editor,
While I have defended West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) boss Dave Cameron for the team’s poor performance — after all he doesn’t bat, bowl, field, coach, or select the team — he must carry the can for the Phil Simmons fiasco. This is not because he fired Simmons (whose win/loss record was appalling), nor that he did so just before the Pakistan tour, he must carry the can for hiring Simmons in the first place.
Cameron talks about good management, but when an organisation is not only hiring and firing key personnel as often as the WICB does, and then caps its sorry record by firing Simmons after only 18 months, it says something: It says is that neither Cameron nor the board have a clue what a good head coach looks like.
Just because Ottis Gibson was a successful specialist bowling coach for England doesn’t mean he would make a good head coach for any team; different skills sets are required. Just because Simmons was successful with Ireland didn’t mean he would be with West Indies.
Did anybody bother to analyse why he was successful? Whether his skill strengths were what we needed, like technique improvement or team selection?
Previously we hired Australians Bennet King — a fine physical education instructor — and ex-Test player John Dyson who, apart from anything else, famously had trouble with the Duckworth-Lewis system. Perhaps a deeper check of their coaching performances might have saved a lot of trouble, not to mention Test matches.
Now there is talk of of Jimmy Adams, who has just left Kent. Adams would surely know that the octopus-like management/selection structure which helped to sink his tenure as captain is still largely in place. He is advised not to walk into the same quicksand twice.
Errol W A Townshend
Ontario, Canada
ewat@rogers.com
While I have defended West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) boss Dave Cameron for the team’s poor performance — after all he doesn’t bat, bowl, field, coach, or select the team — he must carry the can for the Phil Simmons fiasco. This is not because he fired Simmons (whose win/loss record was appalling), nor that he did so just before the Pakistan tour, he must carry the can for hiring Simmons in the first place.
Cameron talks about good management, but when an organisation is not only hiring and firing key personnel as often as the WICB does, and then caps its sorry record by firing Simmons after only 18 months, it says something: It says is that neither Cameron nor the board have a clue what a good head coach looks like.
Just because Ottis Gibson was a successful specialist bowling coach for England doesn’t mean he would make a good head coach for any team; different skills sets are required. Just because Simmons was successful with Ireland didn’t mean he would be with West Indies.
Did anybody bother to analyse why he was successful? Whether his skill strengths were what we needed, like technique improvement or team selection?
Previously we hired Australians Bennet King — a fine physical education instructor — and ex-Test player John Dyson who, apart from anything else, famously had trouble with the Duckworth-Lewis system. Perhaps a deeper check of their coaching performances might have saved a lot of trouble, not to mention Test matches.
Now there is talk of of Jimmy Adams, who has just left Kent. Adams would surely know that the octopus-like management/selection structure which helped to sink his tenure as captain is still largely in place. He is advised not to walk into the same quicksand twice.
Errol W A Townshend
Ontario, Canada
ewat@rogers.com