Long-serving physio Waight loses job with WI team

Long-serving Australian physiotherapist Dennis Waight has lost his job with the West Indies cricket team and now it will be Ronald Rogers who will accompany the Windies team from Thursday this week when the first Test between West Indies and Zimbabwe gets underway at Trinidad's Port of Spain.

According to highly placed sources close to the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), Rogers has been appointed as the team's sports therapist. The Board has also appointed Dr. Rusdi Webster as a performance consultant.

The Trinidadian Rogers has been assigned to look after the team for the forthcoming Cable and Wireless home series against Zimbabwe and Pakistan. Since Dennis Waight has not been 'sacked', his 'expertised knowledge' may be utilised in some other capacity, according to the sources. The change of trainer is just one of the many made in the team in recent weeks, headed by the appointment of Roger Harper as coach, Jeff Dujon as assistant coach, Ricky Skerritt as manager and Jimmy Adams as captain, following Lara's resignation.

The deposed physio's name might not spring to mind like those of Lara, Walsh, Richards or Ambrose, but Waight was almost an institution among the Windies team members. He had been associated with the team as a physiotherapist and trainer since Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket in 1977-78. The 52-year-old physio was a key member of the team for all home and away series. The only tour he missed in his 22-year career was the 1988 England series, when a neck operation meant six months of rehabilitation.

Prior to taking over as physio of the Windies team, Waight was a trainer for a Sydney rugby league side. A few Windies players had injury problems and he was offered the job by the then captain Clive Lloyd. Endless tours later, involving up to 10 months a year on the road, had not affected Waight. At the end of this year, Waight calculated, he would have spent 300 of the 365 nights in a hotel bed. The WI team is bound to be indebted to him.