By Carlena Knight
Despite a plea by former West Indies and national cricketer Sir Curtly Ambrose for the re-instatement of former teammate Winston Benjamin as the Leeward Islands head poach, President of the Leeward Islands Cricket Board (LICB) Enoch Lewis has declared the post is yet to be filled.
Lewis, who was a guest on the Good Morning JoJo Sports Show, revealed that three individuals made the cut, but will have to go through the final stages of the process.
However, he did not reveal the identity of those persons.
“We have done our shortlisting. The candidates have not really been advised yet as to those who will look to be interviewed and we are hopeful that we will get the interviews done in the next 10 days or so,” Lewis said.
Unlike what obtained in the past, the new head coach will be offered a two-year contract instead of one.
Lewis also noted that the LICB would be removed from the selection process for the assistant coach.
“The head coach will then determine who he wants as his assistant with some input from the Board. The person has to have certain qualifications and so on, but we tend to allow the head coach to decide on who he wants his assistant to be, so that we do not hire somebody that you don’t necessarily get along with,” Lewis said.
“We leave that to the head coach to provide some names, particularly a name, and then we do our due diligence and then determine whether or not that person has the qualifications and the necessary skill sets which are necessary for the job.”
He went on to outline some of the attributes the LICB will be looking for in the person who will get the nod for the position of head coach.
“Somebody who provides sound leadership; somebody who is able to plan; somebody who is able to detect skill sets; somebody who is able to write programmes that will benefit the Leeward Islands in general. We want somebody with foresight that not only attends to the senior team, but writes a programme that filters down to the junior levels as well, so that at the end of the day, cricket in the Leeward Islands benefits from being around him.”
The Leeward Islands Hurricanes under Benjamin ended the Regional 4 Day Tournament in third position with 134 points, just .2 points off second placed Barbados who finished with 134.2 points. Guyana won the 2018/19 tournament with 154.2 points.