CWI-Bascombe: Give Sammy a chance

Director of Cricket at Cricket West Indies, Miles Bascombe believes it is to early to judge West Indies all format head coach Daren Sammy based on the performance of the regional side in one Test series.

The West Indies were trounced 3-0 by Australia in Sammy’s first series in charge of the Test team in July, which included them being skittled out for a paltry 27 – the second lowest score in Test history – in the second innings of the third Test match.

They were also defeated 5-0 by the same opponents in the following T20I series and 2-1 by Pakistan in the just concluded T20I series in Florida.

They are currently tied 1-1 in the ongoing ODI series against Pakistan, with the final match scheduled to be played on Tuesday.

Despite those results and widespread calls for Sammy to be fired from several quarters, including former West Indies players, Bascombe said Sammy had not been given enough of an opportunity to prove his worth.

However, speaking during a press conference on Monday following the conclusion of a two-day emergency meeting to address critical challenges facing West Indies cricket, he pointed out that Sammy would be expected to produce better results in the future.

“The underlying reason in [hiring Sammy] was that we felt Daren had been able to articulate a clear plan and we saw him do that in the white-ball format and we pretty much wanted the same type of approach towards Test cricket.

“He is still only one series into his tenure as all-format coach, and while the 27 might be the highlight or lowlight of that first series, we have to admit that we saw some substantial improvement in terms of our bowling unit,” Bascombe maintained.

“We saw even a Brandon King, who is one of those players that some persons might have pigeonholed as a white-ball player, we saw that he was able to show that he was up for the challenge of Test cricket.

“As Daren goes on, as we start to put some of the strategic initiatives in place to help the team prepare and help the players to grow their potential, we expect that performances will be better,” he added.

Bascombe disputed suggestions that Sammy’s hiring had been a cost-cutting measure for CWI.

“I could definitely say that there is no real significant savings in terms of having Daren as all-format coach because we would still need additional support for him.

“So we would still have to have camps, many times he would not be available himself because he would be on tour and so we would still need to bring in other support staff, which would come at a cost, so there was definitely no sort of financial consideration in terms of merging the roles,” Bascombe said.

CMC