West Indies cricket legend Jeff Dujon voiced strong displeasure with the decision taken by Cricket West Indies (CWI) to remove Andre Coley as the head coach of the West Indies Test team. CWI announced Coley's impending departure during a media briefing in St Vincent which was attended by President Dr Kishire Shallow, Directors of the Board and Miles Bascombe, the Director of Cricket.
Speaking on Tuesday night in the Mason & Guest show in Bridgetown, Dujon said the region governing body can ill-afford to part ways with Coley, who recently guided the team to an extraordinary comeback victory in the series in Pakistan.
Andre Coley
Ahead of the trip to Pakistan, CWI announced that Coley's contract would not be renewed and that Daren Sammy would take over the team, coaching the West Indies Senior Men's team in all formats.
Sammy took over the West Indies white-ball teams in 2023 after West Indies failed to qualify for the ICC Men’s World Cup. The former Windies captain engineered a revival of the team’s fortunes in the T20 format which resulted in the team moving up the ICC rankings. However, the team failed to achieve the stated goal of qualifying for the final four of the ICC T20 World Cup played on Caribbean soil last year.
It is against this background that the decision to have Sammy replace Coley has stunned the former West Indies wicketkeeper/batter.
“I’m surprised that they replaced Andre Coley and I’m even more surprised by the replacement,” Dujon said. “In terms of experience, Andre is the most experienced coach we have in the Caribbean, and he is being replaced by someone who has nowhere near that experience as a coach. So, it strikes me as being very strange. I don’t see any reason why Coley should have lost his job at this point. I don’t see anyone at this point who can do a whole lot better.”
Dujon is rated as the greatest wicket-keeper/batsman in West Indies Test history. He played 81 matches between 1981 and 1991 – the era of world dominance under Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards. He scored 3322 runs with five centuries and held a record 267 catches and five stumpings.
Dujon added: “At the Test level we don’t have a settled situation, where players come and go determined by their determination of their availability. As far as I can see, that doesn’t lend to you building… there is nothing for you to build on.”
Coley’s tenure has been mixed. He masterminded the famous win against Australia at the Gabba a year ago -- the first win in Australia since 1997, and the recent heroics in Pakistan -- the first win there since 1990. In between the team suffered defeats away to England and at home against South Africa, while drawing 1-1 with Bangladesh on home soil.
The West Indies next assignments are white-ball tours of Ireland and England in May and June, followed by a three-Test series from June 25 to July 16 against Australia for the Frank Worrell trophy.