‘That’s where things started to go wrong’ – West Indies head coach explains what his team is lacking

Currently, if we talk in terms of cricket, West Indies is going through its worst stage as their team is not able to perform in any of the formats whether it is in ODIs, T20Is, or Tests. The Caribean team who are two-time 20-20 World Cup champions, were not able to qualify for the last 20-20 World Cup which took place in Australia. West Indies head coach explains what is going wrong with his team. 

So the test series against Australia would be the last project for Phill Simmons as the coach of the West Indies side. The coach has a message not only for his team but for his opponents (Australia) as well. 

 “That’s where things started to go wrong for us because we were looking for that great team again, instead of starting to build it up.” “It’s not an easy thing because everybody around you is looking for the same performances that the great era had,” Simmons says. “Sometimes you have to come down in order to build back up.

“I think we messed up from a point of view of always looking for that next Viv [Richards] or the next [Desmond] Haynes or [Gordon] Greenidge.

Will West Indies’ batting fail again?

“So when a guy didn’t come up to that quickly, then you would push him aside. That’s where things started to go wrong for us because we were looking for that great team again, instead of starting to build it up.”

Simmons knows what Kemar Roach is capable of, Alzarri Joseph’s speed, Jason Holder’s bounce, and Jayden Seales’s swing. It is the batting line-up that has to stand up in the Australian series

“The last two years, going on three years, the bowlers have been exceptional,” he says. “It’s just that the batting has now come along, the batsmen are starting to put time in the middle and learning to fight their way through difficult periods in the middle, and that’s causing competition for places and that’s where teams get built up.”