Leg­endary West In­dies fast bowler, Sir Andy Roberts does not be­lieve the ap­point­ment of Daren Sam­my as head coach of the Test team will re­sult in any im­me­di­ate suc­cess for the re­gion­al side.

On Mon­day dur­ing Crick­et West In­dies’ (CWI) quar­ter­ly press con­fer­ence held in St Vin­cent, Di­rec­tor of Crick­et Miles Bas­combe re­vealed that Sam­my, the white-ball head coach, would take over from cur­rent head coach of the Test side An­dre Co­ley ef­fec­tive April 1, 2025.

Sam­my’s pro­mo­tion came on the heels of im­pres­sive re­sults, where he led the T20 team to vic­to­ries in 20 of their 35 match­es, while the ODI side won 15 of its 28 match­es dur­ing his 18 months in charge.

How­ev­er, speak­ing on Trinida­di­an ra­dio sta­tion i95.5FM on Thurs­day, the 73-year-old, who took 202 Test wick­ets in just 42 match­es, said there first need­ed to be a change in mind­set by the play­ers if the West In­dies was to re­turn to its glo­ry days.

“Daren Sam­my is one that is loved by Crick­et West In­dies and es­pe­cial­ly in this ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“I don’t see any coach, any coach mak­ing a dif­fer­ence un­til the play­ers can buy in­to the con­cept of what made West In­dies crick­et great in the past,” Sir Andy said.

“Hard work, com­mit­ment, the love for the game, re­think your game be­cause you can­not al­low coach­es to be think­ing for you be­cause that seems to be the norm in West In­dies crick­et.

“Every­thing that a coach tells them they seem to think that it is gospel. You have to work things out for your­self be­cause what is good for me may not be good for you, so you have to know what is good for your­self and you have to be able to analyse your game on the day, be­cause every day you wake up you won’t feel the same,” he added.

Sir Andy lament­ed the fact that de­spite be­ing root­ed to the bot­tom of the Test rank­ings for decades, West In­dies crick­et was still be­ing run the same way.

“If you check West In­dies crick­et, dur­ing the years that we have been in the dol­drums and to­day we’re still in the dol­drums, but our meth­ods stay the same as it was 15, 20 years ago and it is not a method that is as­so­ci­at­ed with West In­dies’ great­ness,” Sir Andy main­tained.

“We are liv­ing in the past as far as Aus­tralia, Eng­land, In­dia and all of them. They are teach­ing us how to play crick­et now and we were the ones that they were fol­low­ing. Now we’re the fol­low­ers.”

CMC