‘Go back for Pybus’ – former West Indies bowler Darren Powell believes CWI should consider former coach

Phil Simmons, who was the head coach of the West Indies men’s team, resigned after the last tour of Australia and Andre Coley was appointed as an interim coach in his place. He will take charge of the team for the upcoming tours of Zimbabwe and South Africa.

phil simmons on ireland coach
(Image courtesy: EMPICS sport)

However, former West Indies fast bowler Darren Powell believes that former West Indies coach Richard Pybus should pay close attention to trying to get the recently vacated head coaching position.

Pybus was sacked in controversial circumstances four years ago as part of a series of changes by then-incumbent West Indies cricket administration Ricky Skerritt and his vice-chairman Kishore Shallow.

The move proved to be particularly unpopular at the time, given the fact that West Indies, under his leadership had only just put together an impressive performance in a Test series win against England and showed plenty of good qualities in a battling 2-2 tie in the ODI series between the teams.

In addition to that, several stakeholders and even some players advised the administration against making so many changes with the 2019 World Cup less than two months away.

Joining the Mason and Guest radio show, Powell said he believed CWI had gone down the wrong path and could return to Pybus if necessary.

“Why can’t we go back for him (Pybus) he was doing a good job and we have tried another way and it seems as if things didn’t go down the right road.”

As part of their election platform, the Skerritt, Shallow administration had promised to prioritize Caribbean-born people for top leadership positions.

“If you look at Pybus and what he did with the West Indies, I would have been willing to cut off my nose to spite my face for him…how do you know why a man becomes a man when he can accept that he was wrong, apologize and move on.”

Prior to taking over as the team’s coach, 54-year-old Pybus was West Indies’ director of cricket from 2013 to the end of 2016 and endured a rocky stint as director of high performance in February 2018.

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