DUBAI–Bowl­ing coach Rod­dy Es­t­wick be­lieves the dis­rup­tion at the helm of the West In­dies Twen­ty20 side had some im­pact on the play­ers but has backed them to deal with the changes pro­fes­sion­al­ly and "car­ry on as nor­mal."

Last month, two-time World Cup-win­ning cap­tain, Dar­ren Sam­my, was axed from the squad and he was fol­lowed by head coach Phil Sim­mons, who was sacked last week as play­ers pre­pared to de­part the Caribbean for the three-match T20 tour start­ing here Fri­day.

"Like any­thing it has a lit­tle bit of ef­fect but they are pro­fes­sion­al sports­men, they know that these things hap­pen in sport where you lose a cap­tain or you lose your coach and you've got to get on, you've got to buck­le down," said Es­t­wick, who re­placed Sir Curt­ly Am­brose in the post last June.

"There are lit­tle tech­ni­cal changes with dif­fer­ent coach­es com­ing and dif­fer­ent cap­tains com­ing in but they are well-paid pro­fes­sion­als, they are high­ly-skilled pro­fes­sion­als so they are ad­just­ing and they car­ry on like nor­mal."

Sam­my's ax­ing cre­at­ed a firestorm of con­tro­ver­sy as it came five months af­ter he guid­ed West In­dies to an un­prece­dent­ed sec­ond T20 World Cup ti­tle in In­dia.

The St Lu­cian all-rounder was wide­ly viewed as an in­spi­ra­tional leader who com­mand­ed the re­spect of his play­ers, and the de­ci­sion to re­move him re­sult­ed in protests on the open­ing day of the St Lu­cia Test against In­dia last month.

Sim­mons, mean­while, sus­pend­ed by the West In­dies Crick­et Board last year over con­tro­ver­sial com­ments re­gard­ing team se­lec­tion, last­ed just 17 month in the po­si­tion be­fore he was boot­ed out for what the board termed "dif­fer­ences in cul­ture and strate­gic ap­proach."

Choos­ing to side­step the ques­tion on whether the con­stant up­heaval would ham­per the team's de­vel­op­ment, Es­t­wick said he was fo­cussed on ex­e­cut­ing his role as best he could.

"I'm not a politi­cian, I am a pro­fes­sion­al coach and that's my job. My job is to work with play­ers. I tend to leave any­thing [else] out­side," he told re­porters.

"I don't fo­cus on any­thing that I have no con­trol over. The con­trol I have is over the play­ers and mak­ing sure their prepa­ra­tion is spot on, make sure they work hard, make sure there is uni­ty in the camp and those are the things I try and do well."

West In­dies face Pak­istan on Fri­day in the first of three Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­als but with a side with­out stars like Sam­my, open­er Chris Gayle, all-rounder An­dre Rus­sell and bats­man Lendl Sim­mons.

It means West In­dies have in­clud­ed the likes of the un­capped Nicholas Pooran, Rov­man Pow­ell and Kesrick Williams and Evin Lewis, but Es­t­wick said the growth he had seen in the younger play­ers au­gured well for the fu­ture of West In­dies crick­et.

"I've worked with all these young play­ers right through their ca­reers com­ing through the Un­der-19s so it makes my job a lit­tle bit eas­i­er," he ex­plained.

"Once you get young play­ers and you see them pro­gress­ing and you see them grow­ing, that's go­ing to be ex­cit­ing not on­ly for me as coach but for the peo­ple of the Caribbean as well."

CMC