Published: Sep 15, 2016, 11:11 AM (IST)
Edited: Sep 15, 2016, 11:11 AM (IST)
West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) CEO Michael Muirhead says that there was no specific reason for the sacking of Phil Simmons as head coach, but his vision did not align with WICB’s. Simmons took charge of West Indies ahead of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015. West Indies won the T20 World Cup 2016 under Simmons earlier this year and they finished a three-match Test series 1-1 against England at home last summer. The decision to relieve Simmons of his duty was apparently decided in the WICB meeting last weekend at Dominica. It is believed that the board of directors had to vote to decide Simmons’ fate, but Muirhead did not reveal whether it was unanimous or not. Full Cricket Scorecard: Pakistan vs West Indies, 1st T20I at Dubai
“It was the board’s decision. Let us leave it at that,” Muirhead told ESPNcricinfo. “I hired him, so therefore I have to release him but that is on the recommendation of the board,” he said. “The coach has an opinion and the board collectively had another opinion, and that had happened on more than one occasion,” Muirhead added. READ: West Indies sack head coach Phil Simmons ahead of Pakistan series
Muirhead went on, “It is a whole number of things over a period of time. I can’t say it was really one thing. There is no one thing that defines what may have taken place. I think things came to a climax when a decision needed to be made.”
In a media release sent out on Tuesday, WICB mentioned that ‘differences in culture” could be one reason as to why WICB and Simmons did not see eye to eye. “The other thing was the work culture was a little different. It was how we do business, how we execute things. It was an organisational culture. It was not the difference in ethnic culture as has been pointed out elsewhere.” READ: Phil Simmons sacked: Darren Sammy slams WICB
West Indies and Pakistan play three T20Is, three One-Day Internationals (ODI) and three Tests in the UAE, beginning from September 23.
