Tony BeccaTony Becca
FOR SOMETIME now, members of the West Indies Cricket Board, influential people in West Indies cricket and even the man in the street, have been talking about a foreign coach for the West Indies team.
From the look of things, and although there are a number of people against such a move, it appears it won't be long before it becomes a reality before West Indians are taught how to play the game by an Australian or an Englishman.
According to those supporting the move to bring in a foreigner to coach the West Indies team, nothing is wrong with it. At least not, they say, when successive West Indians have failed to do a good job, not with the team performing way below expectation, and not if the desire is to once again produce a West Indies team that one day will be the best in the world or near to being that.
According to those against such a move, however, the West Indies were once among the best for a long, long time, were once the best for a long time, in those days there was no foreign coach, there is no reason why there should now be one, and even though the game is more scientific these days, that seems a reasonable argument.
AN EMBARRASSMENT
In fact, to many, and I am numbered among them, it would be an embarrassment if after 76 years playing at the highest level, if after producing so many great players, if after dominating the world of cricket for some 19 years, the West Indies, the region that has produced so many of the world's best in so many areas of endeavour, cannot find someone good enough, not to perform a heart surgery, but to coach the West Indies team.
If they have not already done so, before deciding what to do, the members of the West Indies Board should look at two things the reasons why the home grown coaches have failed and the pros and cons of a having a foreign coach.
If they are honest with themselves, the Board members will accept that the home coaches have failed not only, as so many Board members so often say, because they are not trained to coach and to teach, but also because of the failure of the players to respect them and to listen to them, and because of the failure of the Board members to insist that they do so.
What is important right now, however, are the pros and cons of a foreign coach.
THE PLUS SIDE
Looking at the plus side, a foreign coach would be good for West Indies cricket because he would not be influenced by regional politics, because, depending on who it is, he would be better trained, and remembering that, for whatever reason, so many West Indians respect foreigners more than they do their own, because the players would more than likely respect him more than they have respected their own.
In fact, in their bid to satisfy a foreign coach and to impress him, the players would probably beat him to the nets, especially if, as has been accepted in principle by the Board, he is, unlike any local coach before him, the Supremo the man who, unlike any local coach before him, will have the big say in the selection of the team.
On top of that, it is almost a safe bet that he will be supported in whatever he says or does by the Board, the same Board that so often in the past listened to the players instead of the coach.
On the other side of the coin, however, West Indies cricket has a style of its own and West Indies cricketers have a flair of their own. Win or lose, West Indies cricket has been popular around the world because of the way West Indians play the game and chances are a foreign coach would change all that.
Lest we forget, when the West Indies team was unquestionably the best in the world, the players were aggressive and exciting.
Apart from being brilliant in the field, batsmen like Gordon Greenidge, Viv Richards, Alvin Kallicharran, Lawrence Rowe, Roy Fredericks and Clive Lloyd, like George Headley, Gary Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Collie Smith, Conrad Hunte, Basil Butcher and Seymour Nurse before them, were stroke players and stroke makers of the highest quality.
FAST BOWLERS
Bowlers like Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Colin Croft, Joel Garner, Sylvester Joseph, Malcolm Marshall, Courtney Walsh and Curtley Ambrose, Learie Constan-tine, Herman Griffith, Manny Martindale, Roy Gilchrist, Wes Hall and Charlie before them, bowled as fast as they could, some as fast as the wind and as deadly as a hurricane.
To stray from being West Indian, to go against what is natural, could have disastrous results and that is what the West Indies must guard against and apart from everything else, that is why a foreign coach should not be an option.
In recent times, there have been coaches who, influenced by their years in a foreign country, drill into West Indian batsmen not to cut, not to hook, not to drive inside out, but rather to be cautious to push and block, to play in the 'V' regardless.
Those are the same coaches who have been telling our young fast bowlers not to bowl as fast as they can, but instead to cut their pace and bowl a good line and a good length, the same ones who tell our young right-arm legspinners not to even attempt to bowl a googly.
What West Indies cricket needs is not a foreign coach. What it needs is someone who can get the players to do what they should do and a Board that will back him whenever he takes action if the players fail to do what they should do if they are to perform in the Test arena.
