St. Jones. West Indies head coach Phil Simmons will step down at the end of this year after failing to make the Super 12 stage due to the Caribbean side’s poor performance in the ongoing T20 World Cup. West Indies are the most successful team of this prestigious tournament with victories in T20 World 2012 and 2016 but the team was knocked out of the tournament with defeats against Scotland and Ireland in the current tournament group stage. The team defeated Zimbabwe in the round-robin league but finished last in the four-team group.
It was the first time since the first tournament in South Africa in 2007 that a West Indies team failed to progress beyond the group stage. Cricket West Indies (CWI) said in a statement on Monday night that their last tournament will be a two-Test series against Australia from November 30 to December 12. Some reports in local media said that according to his contract he would have to give 12 weeks’ notice to his employers and would therefore leave the team in January next year. The 59-year-old Simmons, a former West Indies all-rounder, described the team’s early exit from the T20 World Cup as disappointing.
Simmons said in the statement that I accept that it is not only the team that is disappointed but also the proud nations we represent. It’s disappointing but we didn’t play as expected. Simmons, who played 26 Tests and 143 ODIs for the West Indies from 1987 to 1999, said that we were not good enough and now we have to watch an entire tournament without our participation. This is disappointing and I apologize to my fans for this. He was also the head coach in 2016 when West Indies won their second T20 World Cup title by defeating England at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
After his first short stint, Simmons was re-appointed head coach for a four-year stint in October 2019. However, at that time also he was dismissed controversially. Simmons said that this was not a sudden move from a personal point of view, but a step that I had been contemplating for some time and now it is time to make it public that I am going to be the West Indies head coach at the end of the Test series against Australia. I will leave the post. Earlier this year, under Simmons’ guidance, West Indies beat England 1-0 in the Test series to win the Richards-Botham Trophy. West Indies had also defeated Bangladesh in their last Test series.
