Cricinfo today reported that John Dyson, the former Australian opening batsman and former Sri Lanka coach has been picked to be the next Windies coach.
Popular sentiment in the Caribbean was that Dav Whatmore, the former Bangladesh and Sri Lanka coach, was the fan favorite owing to his experience and if not him then a West Indian such as Ottis Gibson, or one of the assistant coaches David Williams or Hendy Springer. Instead we watched as Whatmore was allowed to take up the head coaching role at the Indian Cricket Academy and Gibson, despite publicly expressing his desire to coach in the Windies, was allowed to be appointed full time England bowling coach. What we all thought was dilly-dallying on the part of the WICB may have been because Dyson was the preferred candidate. According to Cricinfo, Dyson "edged out another Australian, Dav Whatmore" for the post. (Or maybe this is what the WICB would have us believe).
What would be there in Dyson's resume to suggest that he would be a better coach than Whatmore or any of the local candidates? The 53 year old Dyson had a middling Test career as a batsman, averaging 26+ with 2 centuries as an opener. He moved into coaching after retiring and was surprisingly picked as Sri Lanka's coach in 2003 to succeed the aforementioned Whatmore. He lacked little top class coaching experience at the time but seemed to have done a decent job as head coach of Sri Lanka, winning over the players with his attitude and helping to restore Sri Lanka to winning ways.
Dyson came to the Sri Lanka job with no head coaching experience at the first class level, having been an assistant coach at New South Wales. He brought along an Australian staff, similarly to what Bennett King did here in the Windies. Ultimately though, he had more success in Sri Lanka than King had in the Caribbean, winning a home Test series against England 1-0, winning at home 1-0 against South Africa and winning 2-0 in Zimbabwe. Sri Lanka also drew a Test series 1-1 in Pakistan and lost 0-1 in New Zealand. Even with a 0-3 loss at home to the Australians in 2004, Sri Lanka rose in both the Test and ODI rankings in 2004 under Dyson.
An interesting point on Dyson's resume is that he has a Bachelor's degree in Physical Education and he used this expertise to instill a rigorous training regiment in Sri Lanka. With the much publicised reports of the lack of discipline in the West Indies team as well as the difficulty the players had in conforming to the the training regiments under Bennett King, it will be interesting to see how the players react to Dyson and the Aussies that he will undoubtedly bring as part of his coaching staff.
Is Dyson the best man for the job? I don't know but he will have an uphill challenge before him. He will be coaching a team that hasn't won a single Test match anywhere in the world for over 2 years now, a team with players that are often indisciplined and too nonchalant when it comes to their training and preparation, and a group of players who until recently seemed more concerned about their own pay than about the team winning (although the previous WICB administration contributed a lot to that situation). And he will almost certainly have to deal with "Aussie fatigue" after the gross failures of Bennett King.
Earlier I wrote that Dyson "almost definitely would be unpalatable to the West Indies public". Subsequently veteran commentator Tony Becca put forward the myopic, but popular view, that the Windies coach must be a born West Indian in order for the West Indies to "return to or even near to its former glory". Will the Caribbean public give Dyson a fair chance to succeed at the helm? Personally, I am not excited by the choice of Dyson, and would much rather have seen Whatmore, Gibson, Williams or Phil Simmons, but I am willing to wait and see what Mr. Dyson will do. Will he bring in a horde of Australian assistants and isolate the local coaches? Will he be able to instill a deep sense of professionalism in the players? Will he have the team properly prepared and motivated to compete? And maybe most importantly, will he be able to lead the team back to winning ways?
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