Campbell turns down World Cup coaching role

Alistair Campbell, the former Zimbabwe captain, has turned down an offer to travel with the team as a part-time coach to the Caribbean for the forthcoming World Cup.

The Zimbabwe team left Harare on Wednesday and will travel to the Caribbean via the UK. Most teams will have arrived in the West Indies by the weekend. Campbell was drafted into the Zimbabwe coaching staff on part-time basis to help the team prepare for the tournament, and he had also been tipped to eventually take over as head coach. He is, reportedly, not keen.

But Robin Brown, another former Zimbabwe captain helping out with the coaching, who is an employee of Zimbabwe Cricket, is expected to join up with the squad in the Caribbean before Zimbabwe's first match of the tournament against Australia on March 6.

Campbell currently runs Lilfordia Junior School in Harare with his father, Iain, a prominent junior coach who has groomed a number of Zimbabwe's cricketers.