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CRICKET administrators Omar Khan and Roland Sampath believe changes need to be considered in West Indies cricket after the regional team failed to qualify for the main draw (Super 12s) of the International Cricket Council T20 World Cup in Australia.
West Indies, winners of the T20 World Cup in 2012 and 2016, were eliminated after being crushed by nine wickets against Ireland on Friday in their last match of the World Cup qualifiers in Australia.
West Indies scored a modest 146/5 in 20 overs batting first and in response Ireland raced to 150/1 in 17.3 overs at the Bellerive Oval, Hobart.
West Indies needed to finish in the top two in Group B to advance to the Super12s. Instead they finished fourth in the group with one win and two losses.
West Indies lost their opening match of the qualifiers against Scotland by 42 runs, before rebounding with a 31-run win over Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe and Ireland qualified for the main draw and Scotland also missed out after finishing third.
Former national cricketer and TT Red Force manager Sampath said Cricket West Indies must look in the mirror.
Sampath said, “They have to examine themselves and consider if they are the right people in the right position and in the right job. If they appointing people and over and over is the same result what they doing there?”
Sampath said there should be changes in personnel following the performance of the team.
“I expect mass resignations, but you are not going to get that.”
[caption id="attachment_981995" align="alignnone" width="819"] Former West Indies and TT manager Omar Khan -[/caption]
Sampath said people will try to hold on to their position to make money, but if they have West Indies cricket at heart they will step down.
Asked what specific changes he would like to see, Khan said CWI needs to make those decisions.
“That is something the board has to do when they do their post mortem and they do their analysis of what went wrong. Those are the things they need to identify. What is required now for the team to improve?”
Sampath said West Indies have struggled to find consistency and knew it may have been tough to qualify.
“Going into the qualifying tournament one would have gotten the feeling that it would have been challenging because of the fact that in the buildup to the tournament we have not been consistent for quite a number of years.”
The batting continues to fall short, Sampath said.
“You have a batting coach (Monty Desai)…but you are not seeing any improvement in the batsmen and in the manner in which they are getting out.”
Sampath did not blame the batting coach entirely, saying it may be a situation where the batsmen are not listening to him or not taking his advice.
Khan, speaking more about possible alterations, said, “What has happened there (in the qualifiers) should be a great wake-up call for us to put the right people in place who could start instilling in our players the need for them to become students of the game.”
Khan said West Indies players can’t count on talent alone, but they must develop analytical skills. For example, West Indies batsmen should have different strategies for each bowler.
Over the past year a number of senior players have either retired or have not been considered for selection. Former West Indies captain Kieron Pollard, Lendl Simmons and Dwayne Bravo have all retired.
Andre Russell and Chris Gayle have been out of favour over the past year.
Khan said there is enough experience in the team to compete at a higher standard.
“The guys have been playing cricket for a number of years now so they are not new to international cricket. Yes it is a young team, but they have been playing international cricket, they have been playing franchise cricket (and) they have been playing T20 cricket all over the world.”
Sampath agrees with Khan.
“This thing that it is an inexperienced team (and) we learning I am not taking that. All of them only playing T20 cricket…all of them playing all over the world.”
Khan and Sampath both described how painstaking it is to see West Indies cricket in this position.
Khan said, “I am very passionate about this thing and it hurts. I am a former West Indies manager (and) I have been serving West Indies cricket for over 20 years in all capacities and I want our team to do well. It is embarrassing…that was just a blow away (on Friday).”
Sampath said it’s often painful to look at West Indies play in recent years. “In these hard times I don’t want to be stressed more.”
 
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