How long will West In­dies crick­et suf­fer with Floyd Reifer as its full-time bat­ting coach? Ap­point­ed in 2023 un­der the new Dar­ren Sam­my struc­ture or tenure (whichev­er suits your fan­cy) his per­for­mance has been un­der­whelm­ing. To call it that is, in my view, be­ing very kind; it is an is­sue that needs to be ur­gent­ly ad­dressed.

​Nat­u­ral­ly, Reifer did not se­lect him­self. While he re­mains in the po­si­tion by his own un­der­tak­ing, oth­ers must ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the state of the West In­dies' fluc­tu­a­tions in bat­ting. Fore­most in the line of fire is be­lea­guered Di­rec­tor of Crick­et Op­er­a­tions, Miles Bas­combe, who con­tin­ues to op­er­ate as if there is no prob­lem with the West In­dies bat­ting. We have been told, in an ef­fort to pla­cate anger over the team's dis­mal per­for­mances, that a new West In­dies bat­ting coach is be­ing sought. I un­der­stand the po­si­tion was ad­ver­tised, but to date, there has been no an­nounce­ment of a suc­cess­ful ap­point­ment. So, one has to ask Bas­combe for a sta­tus on such.

The truth is that the West In­dies have lost yet an­oth­er se­ries—this time in the One-Day for­mat, falling 3-2 against New Zealand. The woe­ful bat­ting dis­plays in the sec­ond, third, and fourth match­es were par­tic­u­lar­ly glar­ing, with the team dis­missed for 138, 140, and 188, re­spec­tive­ly.

It should be not­ed that, ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion on­line, Reifer's act­ing role as West In­dies head coach is not any bet­ter. Reifer served as the in­ter­im head coach of the se­nior men's team in 2019. Dur­ing the 2019 Tri-Se­ries in Ire­land, the team man­aged two wins against Ire­land but suf­fered three loss­es to Bangladesh. At the 2019 In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) One Day In­ter­na­tion­al (ODI) World Cup, a dis­mal run of two wins, six loss­es, and one no-re­sult led to a ninth-place fin­ish. Al­so that year, In­dia’s tour of the West In­dies re­sult­ed in a bruis­ing 7-0 sweep across all for­mats (3-0 in T20Is, 2-0 in ODIs, and 2-0 in Tests).

​What is rather per­plex­ing is that it ap­pears many in West In­dies crick­et ap­pear com­plete­ly un­both­ered by this tame and timid bat­ting. This is an in­dict­ment not just on Reifer, but on Bas­combe, Sam­my, and ul­ti­mate­ly, the board of Crick­et West In­dies (CWI).

Some have sug­gest­ed to me that Reifer’s coun­try of birth (Bar­ba­dos) has af­ford­ed him a much longer life­line than any coach hail­ing from Guyana, Trinidad and To­ba­go, or Ja­maica would re­ceive. I would hate to even be­lieve that but I will say this in his de­fence, Reifer did not ap­point him­self and I would have to find out if he has got all he has asked for from the CWI ad­min­is­tra­tion to un­der­take his job prop­er­ly but giv­en that he has not to my rec­ol­lec­tion spo­ken out against any re­struc­tur­ing or ob­sta­cles, there is a be­lieve that every­thing he has asked for has been re­ceived.

In all of this, there is an­oth­er con­sid­er­a­tion and that is whether our bat­ting would im­prove with an­oth­er coach, or maybe it is that the qual­i­ty of bat­ting now in the team is so poor that no mat­ter who is the coach, the end re­sults of in­con­sis­ten­cy, lack of tech­nique, tem­pera­ment and stern re­solve may be ir­repara­ble.

John Camp­bell’s run as a West In­dies open­ing bats­man has been high­light­ed as the epit­o­me of in­con­sis­ten­cy, with an at­tack­ing shot se­lec­tion that more of­ten than not has led to loose shots and ear­ly dis­missals. In terms of tech­nique, there ap­pears to be a de­sire to get af­ter bowl­ing, then adapt­ing to cir­cum­stances and sit­u­a­tions. His main prob­lem is that, like many young West In­di­an bats­men, they are told they are full of abil­i­ty and, based on that, lives the dream that this guar­an­tees suc­cess, which is false.

Bran­don King has demon­strat­ed in the past that he is a class bats­man both in qual­i­ty shot se­lec­tion and tem­pera­ment but in re­cent vin­tage, af­ter an ab­sence through in­jury, has strug­gled to re­gain his best. His prob­lem may be that he is in­ward­ly un­cer­tain which style of crick­et (T20, 50 overs or Test Crick­et) best suits the cur­rent rein­car­na­tion of Bran­don King. That notwith­stand­ing, many of crick­et’s elite com­men­ta­tors have sug­gest­ed that he sus­pects against the mov­ing ball, and there­fore coach­ing can and should as­sist, once he is will­ing to do the hard work.

Kea­cy Car­ty's main chal­lenge is him­self and the pos­si­ble demons that he has in his mind be­cause the la­tent tal­ent is there, but he con­tin­ues to un­der­achieve, and whether a new bat­ting coach will help him re­mains to be seen. But some­one needs to en­sure that he can man­age dif­fer­ent match sit­u­a­tions whole­heart­ed­ly.

There are oth­ers such as young Akeem Au­guste, and old­er ones like Justin Greaves and Kavem Hodge that need as­sis­tance ur­gent­ly.

All of the above play­ers need con­sis­ten­cy in prepa­ra­tion and a clear­er un­der­stand­ing of their in­di­vid­ual roles, which could help them turn abil­i­ty in­to sus­tained in­ter­na­tion­al suc­cess, which would ben­e­fit the West In­dies.

The ques­tion is still – Can Reifer do that? And if the an­swer is “Yes", why have we not wit­nessed the pos­i­tive de­sired re­sults, and if “No”, then we need to find an ur­gent so­lu­tion.

All of this de­pends on CWI want­i­ng what is best for the re­gion­al game and not a US$12 mil­lion loan from ICC.