Appeal to the greats

Wes Hall has thrown out an invitation to former great West Indies Test players to come and assist in reviving the regional side's battered image.

Among them are the legendary Sir Garfield Sobers and Sir Vivian Richards.

I have asked all the ex-players if they would help West Indies cricket some of them who have not been around for a long time, said Hall, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) president who is on the verge of completing his sixth month in office.

They have indicated to me yes, but you don't just go up to a player and say come tomorrow. We have to plan it.

Sir Garry, undoubtedly the finest all-rounder the game has seen and Sir Viv, one of the most feared batsmen of his day and a highly-successful captain, have hardly been involved in West Indies' cricket in recent years.

I really want to reconstruct the cricketing architecture of West Indian cricket so that our young ones will easily emulate the feats of the great West Indian cricketers of yesteryear and that they will fit very perfectly into the pantheon of the great stars, Hall said.

To do that you need to have the stakeholders giving some sort of help. We need to get input from those like Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Vivian Richards and all those great players.

Hall, however, added that the services of overseas personnel would also be brought on board following the retention of two Australian coaches who spent a month during the first stint of the Shell Cricket Academy of St George's University.

The WICB is also planning to use the services of Queensland state director of coaching Toot Byron to assist in its development programme.

But we are not going to become Australian cricketers, Hall added.

We are going to play it the West Indian way, but we are going to use tht same structure.

Your structure is what is important. If you do not have a good structure, you are not going to get great players. The academy does not produce your great players. Your structure does.

Hall also went on to say he did not believe the time had come for the WICB to hire an overseas coach.

It is not an ambition of mine, the WICB boss said.

Conversely, you can say that there are many West Indian coaches all over the world.

There is an argument on both sides . . but as an excricketer, it is not my burning ambition to exploy a foreign coach.