Incoming West Indies red-ball head coach, Daren Sammy, said Monday while it was important for his beleaguered side to close the gap on the rest of the world, it was critically important to be “realistic” about the challenges ahead for the Caribbean side.The former West Indies captain, who orchestrated two successful Twenty20 World Cup campaigns in 2012 and 2016, has led the white-ball squads for the past two years, but will also take over the reins of the Test squad from next month.West Indies currently languish eighth in the International Cricket Council rankings, only above Bangladesh, Ireland and Afghanistan, and Sammy said instead of lofty objectives, he intended to focus on “processes … plans … and execution” in order to initiate the change necessary.“I understand the job,” Sammy told an online media briefing.“When I have the conversations with the director [of cricket about] what he wants, to what [is] the direction myself - as the head coach - and my team see we could go, how we’re going to do it but most importantly, the reality of where we’re at as a Test-playing nation … is also important.“So in planning and putting goals on a long term plan, we have to be realistic. We’ve looked at all the top four teams in the world, regional competitions in their territories, what they do on the international scene, [we want to] mirror it with what we do regionally here - our four-day competition which is what we do on the Test team - and we’ve collected all the data.
