Ottis Gibson rips into senior players after West Indies World Cup flop
Ottis Gibson rips into senior players after West Indies World Cup flop
• 'When it got tough, we didn't stand up,' says furious coach
• Heavy defeat against Pakistan could end international careers
• Heavy defeat against Pakistan could end international careers
The two press conferences told very different tales. After watching his team win the World Cup quarter-final by 10 wickets Pakistan's Waqar Younis was cool and calm, almost diffident. Ottis Gibson was furious and while he did not name any names the West Indies coach made it clear who he was angry with: Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul.
"When we left home we said our success would be built around our senior players performing and they haven't," Gibson said. "This is not criticism, it is fact. The senior players have not performed. When the going got tough, we didn't stand up to it."
Four weeks from now these teams will meet again in the first of five ODIs in the Caribbean. It seems likely that by then the West Indian team will have a very different look. The defeat may cost some senior players their careers.
"For the last 10 years West Indies cricket has been pretty much the same and it has been the same players," Gibson said. "This tournament has seen the emergence of good young players and those are the players we will base our future on."
Gibson has no intention of replacing his captain Darren Sammy, who was coming in for some fierce criticism from former West Indian players even before this defeat. Instead he blames senior players who lack the "hunger and desire" to succeed and believes that malaise is what is holding his team back.
Gayle, Chanderpaul and Sarwan have 662 ODI caps between them but in the World Cup they combined to make only 439 runs. "The wicket didn't get anybody out, it was not a bad wicket at all. It was a combination of poor batsmanship and very low confidence," Gibson said. "You can do so much in the nets, it comes down to individuals taking responsibility and having belief in themselves."
West Indies have given debuts to three players in this World Cup, Davendra Bishoo, Andre Russell and Kirk Edwards. Gibson clearly intends to build a team around them, as well as the Bravo brothers and Kemar Roach. If he did not realise the size of the task in front of him before the World Cup, he does now.
As for Waqar, he said his team have no preference about who they will play next, Australia or India. In reaching the semi-finals they have already matched their own expectations and satisfied their fans, or so the players insist. They want to dampen down the hype but after the way they played, the semi-finals should be the least of their ambitions.
Posted by OurPolitics
on 14:15.
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