BASSETERRE, St. Kitts (CMC):
AS THE man responsible for first inviting Australian Bennett King to become head coach of the West Indies cricket team, Dr. Reverend Wes Hall, reckons his assistant should be a West Indian.
Hall was president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) when he announced in March 2003 that King would be the coach to replace Roger Harper, the former Guyana captain and West Indies off-spin bowler.
But King turned down the offer and the job went to former Trinidad and Tobago and West Indies middle order batsman Gus Logie, who was in charge when Brian Lara's side won the ICC Champions Trophy in England in September 2004 - the last major success for West Indies - before King eventually accepted the job two months later.
By then, Hall had relinquished the presidency, which was taken up by his fellow Barbadian Teddy Griffith.
UNDER SCRUTINY
King has been under the microscope as West Indies struggle to win Test matches and series and the fact that his support staff are all Australians as well - assistant coach David Moore, physiotherapist Stephen Partridge and Strength & Conditioning co-ordinator Bryce Cavanagh - many observers believe at least his assistant should be a West Indian.
As he reflected on the events relating to what is now commonly referred to as "Bennett King and his Australian entourage", Hall said a succession plan is vital.
"I am totally responsible, I suppose as the chairman (president) for having an overseas coach. That is true. I am not knocking Bennett King, but there is no way I would have an assistant coach that is not a West Indian," Hall told CMC CricketPlus in an in-depth interview during the third Test against India here.
"I think I've had a bit of training and I think that you need to have succession planning. And I don't think that Logie was No. 2 on that list. He was probably No. 3 or No. 4 but he was the top West Indian and it wasn't a job that we had advertised, so Logie got the job and I think he did very well in the circumstances when you consider that when Bennett King did not come, Logie was pitched forward into that very important job. He did quite well.
HALL'S EXPLANATION
"So I am not dodging the responsibility of having an overseas coach ... but I have always said that the No. 2 or 3, whatever, would have to be West Indian and that has been my position. I am not knocking anybody. I am just making it plain because I have heard so many innuendos, that Wes Hall did this and Wes Hall did that."
Hall justified his pursuit of a foreign coach, saying there was clear evidence that the players were not as responsive to the top regional coaches as they needed to be.
"We had seven West Indians coaching the West Indies team, greatest names in world cricket, you could go from Sir Vivian Richards, to Clive Lloyd, Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall, the greatest fast bowler of all time, down to Logie and Harper, and a common thread is always that our players did not listen," he said.
"You see people in the Caribbean, we do not really give our own and our coaches the respect that they deserve. When Sir Everton Weekes in 1958 was coach for the Barbados Government, they didn't even have a category for him. I think they called him a trader or something like that. So this thing has persisted."
