ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Crick­et West In­dies an­nounced on Thurs­day that for­mer West In­dies cap­tain Carl Hoop­er was roped in to be one of the as­sis­tant coach­es to West In­dies white-ball head coach Daren Sam­my.

For­mer in­ter­im head coach Floyd Reifer, an­oth­er for­mer West In­dies cap­tain, and for­mer New Zealand all-rounder James Franklin will com­plete the coach­ing ex­per­tise for the white-ball squad.

CWI al­so an­nounced that the for­mer Lee­ward Is­lands and West In­dies pair of Ken­ny Ben­jamin and Stu­art Williams, as well as for­mer Guyana pac­er Ray­on Grif­fith will be the as­sis­tant coach­es to new­ly-ap­point­ed Test team head coach An­dre Co­ley.

Ac­cord­ing to a CWI news re­lease, all the as­sis­tant coach­es have been ap­point­ed on a short-term ba­sis, and their po­si­tions will be re­viewed af­ter the in­ter­na­tion­al home se­ries against In­dia in Au­gust.

Hoop­er, one of the most suc­cess­ful West In­dies all-rounders dur­ing his play­ing days, scor­ing more than 5 000 runs and tak­ing more than 100 wick­ets in both Tests and One-day In­ter­na­tion­als, said he ac­cept­ed the po­si­tion be­cause he want­ed to see West In­dies move for­ward.

“When I was ini­tial­ly ap­proached by Daren about the po­ten­tial op­por­tu­ni­ty, I im­me­di­ate­ly con­firmed my in­ter­est, as I re­al­ly want to help with the chal­lenge and make a mean­ing­ful im­pact,” he said in a CWI news re­lease. “I firm­ly be­lieve that it is time for West In­dies crick­et to as­cend, and I am con­fi­dent in my abil­i­ty, knowl­edge, and ex­pe­ri­ence to aid in this en­deav­our.”

Hoop­er, 56, worked pre­vi­ous­ly at var­i­ous lev­els of coach­ing in the Caribbean and Aus­tralia, and his ap­point­ment was wel­comed by Sam­my.

“Crick­et is a team sport,” Sam­my said. “There­fore, hav­ing the right set of peo­ple around you, who share your vi­sion, is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant. This is a group of hard-work­ing, pas­sion­ate men, who have no egos. Our col­lec­tive de­sire is to have a pos­i­tive im­pact on the play­ers and West In­dies crick­et.”

On the Test side, Ben­jamin and Grif­fith were part of the coach­ing staff for the Tours of Zim­bab­we and South Africa ear­li­er this year, while Williams re­turns to a role he pre­vi­ous­ly held on di­verse oc­ca­sions.

Co­ley said the re­ten­tion of Ben­jamin and Grif­fith will be ben­e­fi­cial to the play­ers be­cause they could con­tin­ue the work up­on which they em­barked on pre­vi­ous tours.

“We are look­ing for as much con­ti­nu­ity as pos­si­ble in the prepa­ra­tion for our up­com­ing as­sign­ments,” Co­ley said. “Ken­ny and Ray­on will con­tin­ue in their roles from the pre­vi­ous two tours, and Stu­art Williams is cur­rent­ly with the A Team in Bangladesh.

“It is a hard­work­ing group with some clear tasks out­lined, and we can ef­fec­tive­ly serve West In­dies crick­et as a unit for the up­com­ing se­ries against In­dia.”

CWI al­so in­di­cat­ed that the rest of the sup­port staff struc­ture will re­main in place.

They are for­mer Wind­ward Is­lands cap­tain and West In­dies leg-spin­ner Rawl Lewis in role of team op­er­a­tions man­ag­er, his for­mer Wind­wards team­mate De­nis Byam in the post of phys­io­ther­a­pist, as well as strength & con­di­tion­ing coach Ronald Rogers, per­for­mance an­a­lyst Ave­nash See­taram, and me­dia and con­tent of­fi­cer Dario Barth­ley.

(CMC)

<Sar­wan ques­tions Sam­my’s ap­point­ment as WI coach>

For­mer Guyana and West In­dies cap­tain Ramnaresh Sar­wan is ques­tion­ing the process sur­round­ing the ap­point­ment of West In­dies white ball head coach Daren Sam­my.

In a so­cial me­dia post on Wednes­day, Sar­wan said that 22 per­sons ap­plied for the po­si­tion, but on­ly the iden­ti­ties of the two short-list­ed can­di­dates were made known to the Crick­et West In­dies (CWI Board of Di­rec­tors.

He stat­ed, “The big ques­tion is why were the oth­er twen­ty (20) per­sons / coach­es not made known to CWI di­rec­tors, and al­so, why is this a big se­cret and is be­ing kept away from crick­et­ing pub­lic? In the in­ter­est of trans­paren­cy, those names should have been made avail­able, at least to di­rec­tors of CWI.”

He fur­ther not­ed that Sam­my who has lit­tle coach­ing ex­pe­ri­ence was se­lect­ed over the oth­er short­list­ed can­di­date, Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul who is a Lev­el 3 cer­ti­fied coach.

Sar­wan wrote fur­ther, “Chan­der­paul is ful­ly qual­i­fied with a lev­el III (3) cer­tifi­cate. Sam­my, al­most ze­ro coach­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tions. SHOCK­ING­LY, Dar­ren Sam­my con­firmed as coach. How is this pos­si­ble?”

He is call­ing on CWI pres­i­dent Kishore Shal­low, who like Sam­my is from the Wind­ward Is­lands, to make the cri­te­ria and method used for the se­lec­tion of the coach pub­lic.

He stat­ed, “The Pres­i­dent has a pro­fes­sion­al and moral oblig­a­tion to the Caribbean peo­ple and, with­out de­lay, make pub­lic the cri­te­ria / method used for the se­lec­tion of the coach. Is it be­cause Chan­der­paul is a Guyanese and Sam­my is from Wind­ward Is­lands?”