COLOM­BO–West In­dies crick­et cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er yes­ter­day said that the sus­pen­sion of coach Phil Sim­mons from the team cur­rent­ly in Sri Lan­ka was a set­back for the team.

Hold­er, 23, who leads the West In­dies in a test se­ries for the first time in a team with­out top play­ers like Chris Gayle and Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul, said he is hop­ing that Sim­mons re­turns soon. "No doubt it is a bit of a set­back for us, but at this present stage all we can fo­cus on is crick­et," he said.

"I hope the sit­u­a­tion with him is solved, and solved quick­ly be­cause we'd love to have him back. He's been a won­der­ful in­spi­ra­tion to our team thus far."

Sim­mons is sus­pend­ed pend­ing an in­quiry af­ter his crit­i­cism of se­lec­tion of the lim­it­ed-overs side for the Sri Lan­ka tour. Se­lec­tion com­mit­tee mem­ber El­dine Bap­tiste has tak­en over coach­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in the in­ter­im.

Mean­while Sri Lan­ka cap­tain An­ge­lo Math­ews has giv­en his back­ing to spin bowler Tharindu Kaushal de­spite a ban for one of his bowl­ing ac­tions, rais­ing the prospect of him be­ing se­lect­ed for the up­com­ing test se­ries against the West In­dies.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil has banned Kaushal's way of bowl­ing a "doos­ra"–a ball de­liv­ered with an off spin­ner's ac­tion but which spins away from a right-hand­ed bats­man–be­cause it ex­ceeds the lev­el of al­lowed el­bow flex­ion. How­ev­er, the ICC cleared the 22-year-old Kaushal to bowl his stock ball, the off spin.

Math­ews said that he and the team man­age­ment hoped to rec­ti­fy Kaushal's doos­ra ac­tion and have it cleared as well. The two-test se­ries be­tween the two sides starts on Oc­to­ber 14.

"We strong­ly be­lieve that Tharindu Kaushal is a very valu­able play­er in the side. There is no prob­lem with his off spin and we hope to rec­ti­fy his doos­ra and have it cleared as well," Math­ews told a news con­fer­ence.

"We have a lot of trust in him."

Both teams are in tran­si­tion af­ter the re­tire­ment of many ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers.

Sri Lan­ka is with­out a per­ma­nent head coach af­ter Mar­van At­a­p­at­tu re­signed last month, fol­low­ing suc­ces­sive home test se­ries de­feats against Pak­istan and In­dia.

Or­ga­niz­ers an­nounced yes­ter­day that the se­ries will be played for the Sobers-Tis­sera tro­phy, named af­ter West In­dies great Garfield Sobers and Sri Lan­ka pre-test era cap­tain, Michael Tis­sera.