LUC­KNOW, In­dia – New­ly-ap­point­ed West In­dies head coach, Phil Sim­mons, has warned his charges of the threat posed by his for­mer side Afghanistan and says ex­e­cu­tion and con­sis­ten­cy will be cru­cial to suc­cess in the up­com­ing se­ries.

West In­dies ar­rived this week for a six-match lim­it­ed-overs se­ries – three Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­als and One-Day In­ter­na­tion­als – but are aware that even though Afghanistan is one of the youngest in­ter­na­tion­al sides, they will be dan­ger­ous in fa­mil­iar sub­con­ti­nent con­di­tions.

“It’s a pos­i­tive thing that I know much about the ri­vals but they are a young and en­er­getic side who can up­set any­one,” cau­tioned Sim­mons who stepped down as Afghanistan coach fol­low­ing the ICC World Cup back in Ju­ly.

“Over the last many years, they have be­come quite a con­fi­dent unit. They will be play­ing on home turf; it’s not go­ing to be easy for us. We have to make sure we are ready for what comes to us while fac­ing an ag­gres­sive op­po­si­tion.

“On both the oc­ca­sions when Afghanistan beat West In­dies, I was their coach, and this time I would like to see things in the re­verse or­der. It would be im­por­tant to see how the West In­dies boys ex­e­cute plans.”

He added: “If we need to come up in the lad­der, we need to have a con­sis­tent show­ing in all the se­ries. We have a new cap­tain (Kieron Pol­lard) and let’s see what changes he wants to make for the good.”

Sim­mons was named as West In­dies coach ear­li­er this coach, re­turn­ing for his sec­ond stint in four years af­ter the first one end­ed in ac­ri­mo­ny.

Un­der his guid­ance, the Caribbean side cap­tured the T20 World Cup in 2016 but in his ab­sence, they have slumped to num­ber 10 in the for­mat – be­low the Afgha­nis now ranked eighth – and num­ber nine in ODIs.

Sim­mons, who has penned a four-year con­tract, said he hoped to see the re­turn of a win­ning cul­ture dur­ing his tenure.

“It’s a big re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on my shoul­ders af­ter three years and it is dif­fer­ent too,” said Sim­mons, who played 26 Tests and 143 ODIs dur­ing his ca­reer.

“I would love to start with what is nec­es­sary for now. As a coach, I have a goal for my­self and I want my team to be a con­sis­tent win­ning unit. West In­dies should win more match­es in­stead of los­ing more match­es.”

He added: “We have won the World Cup twice and fin­ished run­ners-up once and now all the stake­hold­ers need to work hard to get things right once again.

“It’s about get­ting the bal­ance right, dis­ci­pline right. Once we have all this, we can hope for a turn-around in for­tunes for West In­dies crick­et.”

West In­dies take on Afghanistan in the first ODI on Wednes­day.

(CMC)