West Indies pin their hopes on King

Inter-island rivalries have always made picking a West Indies team difficult. Since they lost their world-champion crown to Australia in 1995, selection has become virtually impossible as dozens of players have been tried and tested ... and failed. The same problem has infiltrated the process of appointing a coach. Choosing someone to guide the side, and stay there, has been nothing short of a nightmare, and the West Indies Cricket Board is now looking for help from yet another island: Australia.

A leaked e-mail from board sources says that the Australian academy head coach Bennett King will soon be moving to the Caribbean. Greg Chappell was ruled out because his asking price was too high, and Peter Moores, the Sussex coach, was also a contender. Only one West Indian - who has, amazingly, remained unnamed - was on the short-list to replace Gus Logie. Logie was the second choice last year, after King rejected the job after another bungled selection process. King was called by a board official and told he had got the job and the media had been alerted. However, according to King, negotiations were barely in the initial stages, and he decided to stay with the close-knit Australia cricket academy.

So Logie, who coached West Indies A before finding himself mentoring Canada at the 2003 World Cup, was given a job most of the applicants hadn't wanted. He stayed long enough to win the Champions Trophy in England last month, but left by mutual consent when that tournament finished.

This time the WI Board is trying to be more careful, although this strategy still hasn't worked: "We have treated it [the selection process] with a degree of strict confidentially that we intend to maintain," Roger Brathwaite, the WICB chief executive, told the Trinidad & Tobago Express. "We will only make the appropriate announcement when both parties are in full agreement and the contract has been signed."

But the leaked e-mail says King has accepted the job and the board plans to unveil him next week. The move means King will become West Indies' first foreign coach. Rohan Kanhai was the team's initial choice in 1992, and Andy Roberts, Clive Lloyd, Malcolm Marshall, Sir Vivian Richards and Roger Harper followed. But the board has come to the end of the list of 1980s heroes, while the old problems remain both on and off the field. The Champions Trophy already seems a long time ago.