Phil Simmons, who was the head coach of the West Indies senior men’s team, resigned from the post after the tour of Australia at the end of last year.
Accordingly, Andre Coley was appointed as the interim coach for Simmons’ gap and he will take charge of the team for the upcoming tours of Zimbabwe and South Africa.
The region’s high-performance center, Coley, who has worked with the women’s team and also served as an assistant coach for the men’s team, was appointed to fill the role as Cricket West Indies (CWI) ponders its next move.
In a chat with Sportsmax, the West Indies interim coach insisted that he is keen to take over the regional cricket team despite the many challenges associated with it.
He also said that due to the team’s recent poor performance, he is motivated and excited to take up the role.
“Every coaching opportunity bring a different challenge and I have never been one to back away from a challenge.”
“If offered generally I look to take them on. It’s just about assessing working with staff working with the players and coming up with the right strategy.”
Commenting further, he said that communication between each other was very crucial.
“In this case, communication is going to be very crucial, so working out what that communication strategy is going to be.”
Coley became West Indies’ ninth interim coach since 2000, behind a list that included Gus Logie, David Moore, Henderson Springer, David Williams, Stuart Williams, Nick Pothas, Richard Pybus and Floyd Reifer.
He has previously been the head coach of the West Indies U19 team, assistant coach of the West Indies men’s and women’s teams, as well as the head coach of the Jamaica Scorpions and the Windward Islands Volcanoes.
In 2016, he was the assistant coach of the West Indies men’s team that won the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup and earlier this year he was the assistant coach of the Jamaica Tallawahs when they won the Caribbean Premier League title.