'Windies Players Are Deficient' - Harper

West Indies senior team coach Roger Harper claims that "there has been a myth going around that West Indian players are strong technically."

He lamented that everyone has been uttering this falsehoods for sometime and said: "That it's one of the greatest myths that has been thrown around the West Indies for sometime now."

He said, "When we look at our cricket, we realise that we have a lot of technical deficiencies. So it's not a case of us having great techniques and not being able to execute, but our techniques are not up to test level."

The former Guyanese captain and Test all-rounder pointed out that: "When we look at what happened in the past, we did not have people called coaches, but we had a number of people who filled the role as coaches and we also wanted to be the best."

He added, "We had a lot of mentoring going on. It was an informal structure that worked wonderfully well and fulfilled everything that the articulate structure we are talking about, that we are trying to implement that would take care of."

He further explained the system which worked and stressed that: "You had old experienced players who took it upon themselves at the club to develop the young players, imparting the technical and shared their experiences with their young players."

"In the eighties, that sort of thing did not happen. The older players (former Test and First-Class players) just left the game, some migrated or because of economic reasons they weren't able to put in enough time at the club level with the younger players," stated Harper.

He emphasised that, "The youngsters were not brought on the same way as the players were previously brought on.

This means that they were coming through without the proper background they need to have when they get to first-class level, much less international level."

* SOURCE: Trinidad Guardian.