We tend to look at regional coaches first

CRICKET West Indies CEO Johnny Grave said CWI always tends to look within the Caribbean first in filling the head coaching vacancy for the West Indies team.

On the weekend, West Indies head coach Stuart Law submitted his resignation letter to CWI. Australian Law will continue as the West Indies head coach for the upcoming away series against India and Bangladesh,but will leave to join Middlesex CCC, in England, in the new year.

Law, who took over as head coach in February 2017, leaves after guiding the Test team to series wins against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh and the ODI team through the ICC World Cup Qualifiers and into the 2019 Cricket World Cup. Law also oversaw the first Windies Test match win in England for 17 years with a five-wicket win at Headingley last year.

Grave says CWI will be open to all suitable candidates for the job, but said CWI will give regional coaches a lot of consideration. “We will not rule out anyone in terms of applying for the job, where we always tend to look first within the Caribbean, but at the same time recognise that we want to be a world class organisation and we need to attract the best possible candidates...we welcome applications of course in the Caribbean, but also throughout the world,” Grave said.

Over the last 20 years, CWI has used a combination of regional and Australian coaches to lead West Indies. Former West Indies cricketers Phil Simmons, Ottis Gibson and Gus Logie are some of the West Indies coaches to guide the team. Australians Bennett King, David Moore and John Dyson have also coached West Indies.

Grave is hopeful that the next coach will stick around for a few years to bring stability to the team. “Whenever you have a head coach working across three different formats, and therefore three different teams, you want that person to be around for a decent amount of time to build the relationships and give the players that consistency (with) their planning, preparation and the technical areas of their game that they need to work on.” The CWI CEO believes the announcement of Law’s resignation eight months before the start of 2019 World Cup would not affect the team’s preparations. He said, “I think we are putting everything in place...we got Stuart’s resignation on the weekend and immediately communicated that to the public after telling the players and staff.

We have already started to make our plans, not just to ensure that the team has leadership for the tours of India and Bangladesh where Stuart is continuing (to coach), but to have plans in place to have a head coach in position for the start of the England tour. It is a very important tour, not just because of the history and the quality of England in all three formats, but also (it is) the final tour before that 2019 World Cup.” The 2019 World Cup will be held in England and Wales from May 30 to July 14. Grave says one of the key traits the West Indies coach must have is being a good communicator, so everyone understands the direction that West Indies cricket wants to go.