Butcher, Logie Among W.I Coach Applicants

Fri, Jan 24, '03

Former Test players Gus Logie and Roland Butcher are among several contenders for the post of senior West Indies coach which becomes vacant after next month's ICC World Cup tournament.

According to information reaching CaribbeanCricket.com, the Barbados-born Butcher has already applied for the post along with Logie, a Trinidadian who has worked with the West Indies 'B' team and is now on tap to coach Canada at the World Cup.

Former Jamaica leg-spinner Robert Haynes and Leicestershire coach Jack Birkenshaw has also applied and will be called in for interviews. An official at Leicestershire, where Birkenshaw works as an academy coaching consultant, told CC the former England off-spinner had been granted permission to seek the West Indies job.

Haynes, the senior Jamaica coach for several years, has also been short listed but many believe it will come down to a straight battle between Logie and the incumbent Roger Harper.

It is not yet clear if incumbent coach Roger Harper has applied for a contract extension but sources say the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has asked that the contracts of Harper and manager Ricky Skerritt be extended until after the Sri Lanka tour of the Caribbean.

The full board has put the extension proposal to the WICB executives in Antigua, meaning it is a formality that the Harper/Skerritt tandem will be in charge for the Caribbean visits from Australia and Sri Lanka later this year.

An outsider for the post is Roland Butcher, who played three Test matches for England in the early 1980s. Butcher, in interviews with the Barbados Nation last year, has made it clear he's the man for the job but his ill-fated sojourn as coach of the Bermuda national team could work against him.

Butcher landed the Bermuda gig in August 2000 but was fired shortly after for unknown reasons.

Meanwhile, sources confirmed that WICB chief operations officer Michael Hall has applied for the job of team manager. Hall was originally billed as a frontrunner for the job and insiders say the Jamaican administrator will actually interview for the job on Saturday at WICB headquarters in St John's, Antigua.

Skerritt has also reapplied for a contract extension and will interview with acting WICB chief executive Roger Brathwaite before taking off for the World Cup in South Africa.

Former pace bowling stalwart Joel Garner, who had stints as West Indies 'B' team manager recently, has also tossed his hat into the ring along with countrymen Calvin Hope and Tony Howard.

THE APPLICANTS:

COACH: Gus Logie, Roland Butcher, Jack Birkenshaw and Robert Haynes. Roger Harper (maybe).

MANAGER: Michael Hall, Ricky Skerritt, Joel Garner, Tony Howard and Calvin Hope.