Rain, No Play

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).  read more »

Caribbean Cricket today reported that former Sri Lankan and Bangladesh coach Dav Whatmore is among the candidates to replace former coach Bennett King. John Dyson, another former coach of Sri Lanka is a candidate as well. The list of West Indians includes Phil Simmons, Eldine Baptiste, current assistants David Williams and Hendy Springer as well as allrounder and newly appointed English bowling coach Ottis Gibson and Roger Harper's brother Mark.

As a World Cup winning coach with Sri Lanka in 1996, Whatmore headlines the list of possible coaches. He last coached Bangladesh to unprecedented wins over India and South Africa in the last world Cup and was heavily rumored to be a strong candidate in the coaching searches in Pakistan, England and India. With the well documented failure of Australian Bennett King's tenure, the West Indian cricketing public might be unwilling to welcome another Australian in Whatmore. However, Whatmore would come to the job with a proven record of taking teams like Sri Lanka in the mid nineties and Bangladesh of 2007 to unprecedented heights. King on the other hand, had no international experience as the coach of the Australian cricket academy when he took over the Windies job. John Dyson experienced mixed success in two years at the helm in Sri Lanka, but he doesn't enjoy the international stature of Whatmore and almost definitely would be unpalatable to the West Indies public.  read more »