Former West Indies fast bowler Daren Powell believes serious consideration should be given to attempting to retrieve the team's former coach Richard Pybus for the recently vacated position of head coach.
Pybus was sacked in controversial circumstances four years ago as part of a raft of changes made by the then-incoming Cricket West Indies administration of president Ricky Skerritt and his vice president Kishore Shallow.
The move had proven to be particularly unpopular at the time, given the fact that West Indies, under his leadership had only just put together an impressive performance in a Test series win against England and showed plenty of good qualities in a battling 2-2 tie in the ODI series between the teams.
In addition to that, several stakeholders and even some players advised the administration against making so many changes with the 2019 World Cup less than two months away.
With the post once again vacant following the resignation of Phil Simmons, Powell believes the opportunity could exist to correct what many consider to have been a grave error in judgment.
As to whether the 54-year-old Pybus, who is reportedly shortlisted for the South Africa job, would be interested in returning after a departure in such acrimonious circumstances, or whether the CWI be willing to make such a drastic reversal is another thing entirely.
"Why can't we go back for him (Pybus) he was doing a good job and we have tried another way and it seems as if things didn't go down the right road," Powell told the Mason and Guest radio program.
As a part of their election platform, the Skerritt, Shallow administration had promised to give priority to Caribbean-born individuals for top leadership positions.
"If you look at Pybus and what he did with the West Indies, I would have been willing to cut off my nose to spite my face for him...how do you know why a man becomes a man when he can accept that he was wrong, apologize and move on," Powell added.
Prior to his appointment as coach of the team, Pybus endured somewhat of a rocky tenure, serving as High Performance director in February 2018, having previously served as West Indies director of cricket from 2013 to the end of 2016.
In 2019, only a few weeks after replacing the Dave Cameron administration, the Ricky Skerritt-led regime controversially decided to sack Pybus and his entire coaching staff, with the ICC tournament less than a month away.
The move raised even more eyebrows at the time, because it came after the team had, very much against heavy odds, defeated a higher-ranked touring England 2-1 in a Test series, only weeks prior and tied top-ranked England 2-2 in a subsequent One Day International series.
On the back of several disappointing performances in recent months the decision has, on occasion, come back under the microscope and to the fore for discussion.
“It was not even bad, it was one of the worst decisions to have even been made in recent times in West Indies cricket,” Hope told the Mason and Guest radio program.
“Here you were, you had just begun to see some green shoots in the performance of a team. It doesn’t matter who was in charge before or anything like that and it was basically a political decision,” he added.
The West Indies finished 9th at the ICC World after winning just 2 matches and losing 6.
Hope and Guyana’s Anand Sanasie were part of a two-man team that challenged Skerritt and vice-president Kishore Shallow for the leadership of CWI last year.
Pybus, a former Director of Cricket, served in the post from January to April of last year before being replaced by Floyd Reifer, a few weeks ahead of the 2019 World Cup. Although his tenure was brief, Pybus is credited with orchestrating an outstanding performance from the West Indies cricket team that hosted England last year.
The Test team went on to reclaim the Wisden Trophy with a 2-1 series win over England and also matched up to the highly ranked tourists in the One Day International format where they secured a 2-2 draw. For some critics, the performances had nothing to do with Pybus but was merely a case of the team beginning to discover its full potential. Radford, who served as a member of Pybus’ staff, however, disagrees.
“I thought he was exceptional. Where Richard Pybus was very good was setting the agenda of where he believed the team could go, and getting the players to buy into ‘this is where we were headed’ Cameron told the Mason and Guest radio program.
“I remember the way he drew up on a flip chart, ‘what does a world’s number one look like?’ ‘If you took the world’s best team what is it that they do in Test match cricket?’ He got the players to write down what they needed to deliver. ‘We have to bat for 120 overs. We have to get 350 plus.’ He had all these things and the players were coming up with it, so it gave the players ownership. The players bought into this vision of what we were trying to deliver. So there were clear targets,” he added.
‘Another thing he brilliantly did he put the list of 11 players up, he put the England 11 up and he started to do match-ups. He would say ‘Shannon you have to take more wickets than Anderson’ and it was great there was competition for players with the opposition number. He had all these kinds of things. I think he was excellent as a manager and motivator.”
There have been two seasons of the eight-team tournament, with a third due to get under way in August, but it continues to divide opinion and attract debate.
The Hundred was effectively ring-fenced and spared scrutiny during the high-performance review of English cricket helmed by Sir Andrew Strauss last year, but with several of its key recommendations discarded the Daily Mail and The Cricketer have reported that the governing body is now ready to put it back on the table. The ECB has been approached for comment.
Reverting to the T20 format and a two-division structure with promotion and relegation is one suggestion, but any changes are unlikely to come quickly. While contracts associated to the competition, from players to backroom staff, typically run year to year and could be unpicked with relative ease, the ECB’s current broadcast deal with Sky runs to 2028 while the BBC’s existing free-to-air arrangement covers at least the next two editions.
It is perhaps relevant that the ECB is currently led by chief executive Richard Gould and chair Richard Thompson. The pair held matching roles at Surrey when The Hundred was first under mooted, with the club forthright in their opposition during their tenure.
Gould has publicly reversed his stance since taking over at the ECB, declaring the 100-ball tournament “a significant success” and predicting it would have “a long future”.
Opinions on The Hundred remain mixed. The elevation of the women’s game has been an unvarnished success, while there is evidence that the scheduling, marketing and ticket pricing have helped attract new fans and a broader demographic to cricket grounds.
But the financial situation is disputed. A report from Worcestershire chair Fanos Hira, a chartered accountant, attaches a £9million loss to the first two seasons but the ECB argues that it turned a profit of £11.8m.
The Hundred has been granted a clear window at the height of summer, taking place throughout August in the immediate aftermath of the Ashes, but appears unlikely to be granted the same luxury in 2024.
