THE EDITOR: In the brutal world of sport, when a team does not do well, the coach is the first to be fired.

In May, I wrote about the lack of strategic planning by the coaching staff of the West Indies cricket team.

The entire West Indies coaching staff must now go and Nicholas Pooran must be demoted as captain.

It is not the fact that the West Indies lost to Scotland in our first T20 World Cup qualifying game, but how we lost.

West Indies panicked when the players thought that rain was coming and totally lost the plot in trying to reach the Duckworth-Lewis score. Rain never came and the coaching staff was clueless, as usual, in flexible thinking.

There was no strategic intent and Pooran is clearly out of his depth in the captain's role.

Insouciance was clearly on show with the dismal performance of the West Indies.

Former successful T-20 WI coach Otis Gibson, in a recent interview with ESPNcricinfo, said, "I feel like West Indies is at that stage, at the moment, where they need to relook the strategy that they're using with the personnel that they have right now."

Zimbabwe and Ireland are the next two opponents and they are no pushovers.

In January 2020, Ireland beat the WI in a T20 game. In February 2010, Zimbabwe beat the WI in a T20 game. They last played each other in 2013.

If the WI players want to play in the World Cup, they will have to change their attitudes. Why is Dr Rudi Webster not part of the management team?

Maybe the WI performance will improve, if the players remove all the bling, designer shades and fancy colours from their heads and focus on the cricket.

LINUS F DIDIER

Mt Hope