Vin­ode Mam­chan

New West In­dies coach Phil Sim­mons has de­cid­ed that he will be the man stand­ing be­tween the West In­dies se­nior team se­lec­tion pan­el and his play­ers.

The for­mer West In­dies open­ing bats­man has asked the se­lec­tion pan­el to in­form him of any play­er who is dropped from the team, since he wants to be the per­son to con­vey the mes­sage.

Sim­mons, to­geth­er with Test skip­per De­nesh Ramdin will join the oth­er se­lec­tors Clive Lloyd (chair­man), El­dine Bap­tiste, Court­ney Walsh and Court­ney Browne, to se­lect the West In­dies team to face Aus­tralia in two Test match­es that will be­gin on June 3.

In the past, the se­lec­tors were the ones who re­layed this in­for­ma­tion. How­ev­er, in a new pol­i­cy di­rec­tion, Sim­mons says he wants to main­tain a re­la­tion­ship with any play­er who no longer finds favour with the se­lec­tors. He wants to keep the com­mu­ni­ca­tion door be­tween him­self and his play­ers open.

The for­mer Test open­er sees his role as keep­ing every­one in the know as far as where their ca­reers are in­volved and in­stead of them learn­ing in the me­dia that they have been dropped, he wants to take a more car­ing role in terms of deal­ing with his play­ers.

This has been well re­ceived by the play­ers who have been able to ral­ly around Sim­mons in his short tenure thus far. Sim­mons opened his ac­count with a 1-1 draw in the three Test se­ries against Eng­land in the Caribbean re­cent­ly and has won the re­spect of his play­ers ac­cord­ing to in­sid­ers.

Ac­cord­ing to one in­sid­er, he has been tough, yet car­ing and the play­ers have re­spond­ed nice­ly to him. "The dress­ing room is a good place to be these days. Sim­mons has come in and has done a good job in hold­ing good re­la­tions be­tween the play­ers and the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB). He has shown that re­spect and care for his play­ers but they have been made to un­der­stand that he is a no non­sense man and is us­ing dis­ci­pline as his key word in re­build­ing this team."

Sim­mons did won­ders for Irish crick­et dur­ing his nine years as coach, lift­ing them from just an­oth­er as­so­ciate team, to one that was feared by sev­er­al of the Test play­ing coun­tries.

Sim­mons guid­ed the Irish to vic­to­ry over the West In­dies in the re­cent World Cup in Aus­tralia and New Zealand.