Ottis Gibson quits West Indies coaching job by mutual consent

Ottis Gibson 

The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) confirmed on Tuesday night that Ottis Gibson’s tenure as the West Indies coach has ended with immediate effect.

Gibson was absent from West Indies’ training session in St George's, Grenada, on Monday ahead of their first One Day International against Bangladesh on Wednesday, leading to doubts over the 45-year-old’s future. As it has turned out, those doubts were definitely not misplaced.  

"The West Indies Cricket Board and Mr Ottis Gibson mutually agreed to terminate their association with immediate effect," the WICB’s statement read.

"On behalf of the Board and West Indies cricket as a whole we express our gratitude to Ottis for his work, particularly in coaching the team to winning the ICC World Twenty20 in 2012, and offer our best wishes to him in all his future endeavours."

Richie Richardson, who is the team manager, will take charge of the team on a temporary basis. There is no change to the rest of the coaching staff, with assistant coaches Stuart Williams and Andre Coley and bowling consultant Curtly Ambrose continuing in their respective roles.

Gibson quit the post of England bowling coach to take over as coach of the West Indies in February 2010. Notwithstanding the victorious World T20 campaign in Sri Lanka in 2012, his tenure with the West Indies has been largely unsuccessful with there being no major improvement in West Indies’ Test and ODI results in particular.

West Indies have won 9 out of 36 Tests and 36 out of 90 ODIs in his time as the head coach, and they are, as a result, currently languishing at 8th in both the ICC Test and ODI rankings.