Cricket legends upset over Dyson suggestion

The legends of West Indies cricket are fuming over West Indies coach John Dyson’s recent suggestion that the West Indies could learn from the current Australian team’s approach to the game.{{more}}

“We have enough men to pattern our game after; we don’t need to pattern the Australians,” said former West Indies captain Sir Vivian Richards.

Richards spoke to SEARCHLIGHT last Monday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Trinidad at the ring presentation ceremony for Trinidad and Tobago which won this year’s Stanford 20/20 tournament.

Richards and 12 other outstanding former West Indies Players are part of the Stanford 20/20 Legends.

“Ask him about the 1980s when we beat the same Australian side…it is the same West Indies style that gave them a hiding in the 80s and early 90s” Richards told SEARCHLIGHT.

Richards, who dismissed Dyson’s suggestion as “rubbish,” had support from other legends, who took offence to Dyson’s remarks.

Following the West Indies’ team 2-0 and 5-0 drubbing at the hands of the Australian team in the just concluded Test and One-Day series, respectively, Dyson suggested that the West Indies team stop playing cricket “the West Indian way” to achieve more success.

“We have to accept that we need to change our approach to various things,’’ he is quoted as saying.

“The potential is there. We have some very talented players, but to compete with teams at the top of the table, there are some changes that they need to accept, they need to make to their game…Teams like Australia build pressure by bowling large sets of dot balls and make it very difficult to score. I’ve been told since South Africa that ‘the West Indian way’ is not to do this. We’re aggressive. We try and get people out. That’s fine, but you see the results of that – we have some good days and we have some shockers. Hopefully, after this series, the players will sit back, reflect on that and accept that there are things that need changing,’’ Dyson said.

“My response is that the West Indian way is here…we want our players to look to the excellence of these (his fellow legends). I am diametrically opposed to that (what Dyson said),” Rev Wes Hall, one of the most revered fast bowlers in West Indies history said.

Meanwhile, former West Indies opener Gordon Greenidge pointed to the tendency to look towards foreign coaches to lead the West Indies team.

Greenidge, who was made a an honorary citizen of Bangladesh after a successful coaching stint with them in the 1990’s, said that former West Indies players are not considered good enough to lead the team.

“Obviously we are not good enough…maybe the players and maybe the board feel that having a foreign coach may be better suited to do the job,” Greenidge said.

He said that even when local coaches are hired, the support that the foreign coaches get is missing.

Shortly after leading the team in 2004 to its only major title in ages, Gus Logie’s contract as head coach, that had another year on it, was ended.

“It is no secret that the West Indies Cricket Board is looking for a foreign coach, and they have already spoken to a lot of people. Whoever comes in, I hope he gets a lot of support; certainly a lot more than what I was getting. I am disappointed. I made a contribution and have been denied the opportunity to work with what has just begun to blossom. A foreign coach will come into this area and will be given the resources and authority I never had to get the job done, and this just when results were being seen,” a disappointed Logie said back then.

Since then the team has been coached by Australians Bennett King and now John Dyson.