West Indies head coach Phil Simmons stepped down as the West Indies coach. England, Pakistan, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are playing directly in the main stage of the T20 World Cup due to being in the top eight in the ICC T20 rankings by November 15 last year.
The two-time world champions West Indies and Sri Lanka have to play in the qualifying round due to the fact that they are behind in the ranking at the scheduled time. Sri Lanka qualified for the qualifiers but Windies did not. They lost against Scotland and Ireland and were knocked out before the Super Twelves of the World Cup.
West Indies head coach Phil Simmons voluntarily resigned due to such poor performance of the team. He will step down after the Test series against Australia in November-December this year.
In his resignation statement, Simmons said, “I know that not only our party, but the countries we represent, have suffered because of our failure.” We did not play well in the World Cup and we have to sit on the sidelines and watch the tournament. I apologize to everyone for this.
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He also said that leaving the post of coach was not a sudden decision, I had been thinking about it for quite some time. Now it’s time to inform everyone that I am stepping down as head coach after the Test series against Australia. Maybe I’m making this decision a little earlier. But now I will fully try to maintain the trend in which our Test team has improved.
West Indies won the T20 World Cup for the second time in 2016 under Phil Simmons. In 2019, Simmons got the responsibility of the West Indies for the second time. The windies coach left the role in awe of the recent failure against teams in the qualifying stages. This is the first time they are not directly in the world cup.
