NEWS
Follow UsPhil Simmons is a veteran in the cricket coaching circuit. While players travel overseas to hop from one T20 league to the other, Simmons does the same but for coaching stints from one team to the other.
Having coached teams like Zimbabwe, Ireland, West Indies and Afghanistan in more than one stint, Simmons is now a part of the Papua New Guinea support staff for the ongoing T20 World Cup 2024, joining their camp as a ‘specialist coach’ for the tournament. The 61-year-old will help Tatenda Taibu, former Zimbabwe cricketer and the current PNG head coach.
As told by Simmons himself in the pre-match presser ahead of PNG’s next fixture against Uganda, Taibu made the call to Simmons for his expertise on the local conditions. Trinidadian by birth, Simmons represented the Windies at the highest level for over a decade.
“It (his role at PNG) all started with a number of years ago with me coaching to Tenda (Tatenda Taibu) in Zimbabwe,” Simmons told. “In this time coming to the World Cup I think he thought - well look the way how I am, I can help add some value to this team during the tournament and he approached me and it's great to work with him,” he said.
Conditions have played a vital part in the seven matches in the competition thus far. The matches have been fairly low-scoring with teams batting first struggling to assess the winning total soon. Rain has also been a factor in a few games. Evaluating the conditions is where Simmons becomes a handy link in PNG’s support staff.
In their first fixture, PNG was up against his home team West Indies. Batting first, they recovered from a poor start (15/2 in four overs) to post 136 on the board but lost with an over to spare after a tough fight with the ball.
“I think the big thing that we've been trying to get them to understand is the adaptation,” Simmons spoke further on his role.
“For instance, we played here and after five or six overs you can see it's not going to be a 170 wicket but we were trying to get to 150 because we know we'd be in the game then and as we've seen in most of the other games around the tournament, it's not going to be an IPL-type season with 250s and 260s,” Simmons said further, highlighting the difference between the recently concluded Indian Premier League (IPL) season and the ongoing World Cup.
“So that adaptation and that understanding of the situation of the game and what they have to do and I think Sese (Bau) showed what we've been trying to get into everybody's head the way he played that day so that's, what we, that's the main objective of me being just trying to get them to understand that part of the game,” he expanded.
PNG are part of Group C which is seen as the ‘Group of Death’, owing to the presence of three Test-playing nations — West Indies, New Zealand and Afghanistan, alongside the Associates in PNG and Uganda.
“You never know where we can be, because of how tight this group can be with the so-called three top teams and then us at the bottom.
“But we're not looking at it like that, we're looking at it like five teams in this, and we need to play our best and try and win two games, possibly three, and get out of the tournament into the next round,” Simmons said on the tough group for his team.
PNG now play Uganda next in Guyana on June 6.
“We made a couple of mistakes against West Indies and we want to correct those, do as well as we did in the first game, but just add that one, two percent to our game. There's a few little things we identify that we need to make sure that we do a little bit better,” the former West Indies cricketer said about the mood in the camp.
On being asked if he would like to see West Indies win their third T20 World Cup trophy, Simmons didn’t show any hesitation in showing his loyalty towards PNG.
“Right now, I want PNG to win the trophy,” he said.
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