Cricket West Indies has started to chart a new course for the coaching and selection of the West Indies team with the appointments of Floyd Reifer and Robert Haynes to interim positions of head coach and chairman of the selection panel respectively, new president Ricky Skerritt said on Thursday.
The widely-expected appointments of Reifer and Haynes followed a CWI board meeting on Tuesday. The two are expected to remain in the roles through the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 England & Wales and the Windies’ home series against India in July/August.
As a result, Richard Pybus, who held the position of interim head coach for the team’s recent, highly-successful home series against England, is to return to his substantive role of high performance director, and the previous selection panel, headed by Courtney Browne, will be replaced.
The moves come mere weeks after Skerritt and new vice president Dr. Kishore Shallow were swept to power, aiming to put “cricket first”, and embarking on a new and less contentious path for the regional governing body, when it was under the stewardship of their predecessors, Dave Cameron and Emmanuel Nanthan.
Reifer, a former Barbados and West Indies captain, is the long-standing head coach of the Combined Campuses & Colleges Marooners which won the CWI’s Super50 Cup One-day competition last October.
He held a previous interim role with the Windies team on the Tour of Bangladesh last year, following the departure of previous full-time head coach Stuart Law for greener pastures with Middlesex in England.
Reifer had emerged as a leading candidate for the position ahead of other candidates, including former Windies star opener Desmond Haynes, Women’s head coach Hendy Springer and former bowling coach Roddy Estwick, after he guided West Indies “A” to a notable series victory over England “A” two years ago in the Caribbean.
Haynes, a former Jamaica and West Indies leg-spinner, returns to the selection panel after he previously served under the chairmanship of Clyde Butts.
He would have gotten a close-up view of regional players, after he was appointed head coach of the Jamaica Scorpions during the West Indies Championship which ended last month.
Haynes, Reifer and Holder, currently playing for Northamptonshire in the English County Championship, will form the selection panel for the Windies team that will take part in a triangular One-day International series next month in Ireland, ahead of the World Cup.
Skeritt said Dr. Shallow will head a task force to review the current method of selecting the team, seeking to move it into line with best practice that leads to the best outcomes, and CWI planned to unveil this new policy in the next three months.
