Shane Deitz appointed as head coach of West Indies Women

Shane Deitz has stepped down as Netherlands Women's head coach to take up the same role with West Indies Women. Deitz will start in his new role in late August, ahead of the Women's CPL, and the away series against Australia in October will be his first assignment with the team.

Deitz, 48, is a former South Australia wicketkeeper-batter who played 66 first-class matches between 1998 and 2008. He has also featured in 27 List A games and two T20s. He has been into coaching for over a decade now, and was the head coach of the Bangladesh women's team in 2013-14. He takes over a West Indies team that made the semi-finals of the ODI World Cup in 2022 but failed to make the knockouts of the T20 version earlier this year.

"West Indies cricket both men and women have a great history of success whilst playing entertaining cricket and my aim is to continue with that formula," Deitz said. "The team has a great blend of world-class senior players and some talented younger players which is a good starting point to build from. We have a lot of work to do though as the reality is we are behind the top few sides in the world and we need to bridge that gap and become competitive again to challenge for World Cups in the future.

"I do believe though the nucleus is there to create a world-class competitive side and that is what I will aim to do. The standard of women's cricket is at an all-time high and we need to strive to reach those heights through good planning, a lot of hard work and then executing on the pitch."

Deitz became the full-time coach of the Netherlands women's team in March 2021, and under him, they regained one-day status. Their ODI ranking peaked at 12 and the T20I ranking at 18. Netherlands are currently preparing for a European qualification tournament for the 2025 ODI World Cup.

"Obviously the decision to leave the Netherlands Women's team was extremely tough as I have loved working with this team, they really are a great bunch of girls," Deitz said. "The team has grown on and off the field and they are in a really good position now to keep pushing to qualify for a World Cup. I really want to thank the whole squad for their efforts and sacrifice they put in to get the team where they are."

At West Indies, he replaces Courtney Walsh, whose contract was not renewed following a review of the team's performance. The contracts of assistant coaches Robert Samuels and Corey Collymore were also not extended. Samuels, though, was appointed interim head coach for the ODIs and T20Is against Ireland, taking place over the past week, with Ryan Austin and Steve Liburd as his assistants. West Indies won both ODI and T20I series under this management.

Deitz's appointment was confirmed at the CWI board of directors meeting on June 30 at the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua, and made public on July 8.