Vin­ode Mam­chan

For­mer T&T and West In­dies all rounder Phil Sim­mons is the new coach of the West In­dies crick­et team.

Sim­mons was giv­en the nod over T&T-born for­mer In­di­an na­tion­al Robin Singh for the top post and will be sign­ing a con­tract with the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) to­day. He will take up the po­si­tion for three years in the first in­stance. Sim­mons has been knock­ing on the door for a while and has been mak­ing the best ad­ver­tise­ment with his work in Ire­land with their na­tion­al team.

At the cur­rent World Cup, he led Ire­land to an up­set vic­to­ry over the West In­dies in their open­ing game. Ire­land failed to get in­to the quar­ter-fi­nals, how­ev­er, af­ter go­ing down to Pak­istan in their fi­nal match of the pre­lim­i­nary round.

With the World Cup out the way, Sim­mons was then giv­en time to deal with his con­tract and will sign to­day.

He will get mov­ing im­me­di­ate­ly as he has Eng­land on his doorsteps in a few weeks time.

The Ari­ma man is ex­pect­ed to be a good fit on the man­age­ment team, as he has the re­spect of the play­ers. His nephew Lendl will al­so be un­der his wings, al­though Lendl an­nounced his re­tire­ment from Test crick­et re­cent­ly.

Sim­mons played 26 Tests for the West In­dies, scor­ing 1002 runs at an av­er­age of 22.26. He al­so ap­peared in 143 ODIs, scor­ing 3675 runs at 28.93 with a best of 122. He al­so cap­tured 83 wick­ets in ODI crick­et at 34.65, with a best of four wick­ets for three runs off 10 overs against Pak­istan–which re­mains the most eco­nom­i­cal bowl­ing in ODI crick­et.

The West In­dies has been with­out a head coach since Ot­tis Gib­son was re­moved at the end of the se­ries against New Zealand in the Caribbean last year. The West In­dies lost that se­ries 2-1, and Gib­son was fired af­ter the West In­dies al­so lost the test se­ries.

Since then, the team has been han­dled by as­sis­tant coach­es Stu­art Williams, An­dre Co­ley and fast bowl­ing con­sul­tant Curt­ly Am­brose. Man­ag­er of the team Richie Richard­son has al­so lent his con­sid­er­able ex­pe­ri­ence in the bat­ting de­part­ment.

The West In­dies will play hosts New Zealand in the quar­ter-fi­nals on Fri­day night (TT time).