West Indies are smiling in the face of adversity

For a man attempting an impossible task, he smiles an awful lot. But that's a Bajan for you, and that's Ottis Gibson for you.

Gibson smiled like this when I knew him as an overseas professional struggling to come to terms with the demands of the role for Glamorgan in the mid-nineties, and he certainly smiled like that when he was being named the Professional Cricketers' Association player of the year in 2007 after a stunning final season for Durham.

Now he is coach of the West Indies, and he was still smiling at a horribly dank Hove last Thursday.

Goodness knows why, mind. For here is the rub. Since taking over just over two years ago Gibson's side have won just two of their 19 Tests. He does not currently have many of his best players (like Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Andre Russell, Kieron Pollard and Sunil Narine), who are preferring the Indian Premier League lucre, and the rest of his side are chosen from a flimsy first-class structure that often provides swifter conclusions to matches than the damp, roller-less county pitches have so far this season. His employers are the highly political West Indies Cricket Board, a body less loved than a group of London bankers, and with an equal propensity to fritter money.

It is a simple Sisyphean scenario. Gibson must wonder why on earth he left his job as England's fast bowling coach just over two years ago. He had been steadily improving in the job he'd first taken temporarily in 2007. Indeed the only obvious area in which his acclaimed successor David Saker might score significantly higher is the management of game tactics.

Gibson had some early problems with the old lags like Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard, but he played a considerable part in the advancements of James Anderson and Stuart Broad. Even Andrew Flintoff listened to him, famously gesturing in appreciation to him on the Lord's balcony in 2009 after he had dismissed Australia's Simon Katich from Gibson's plan of bowling wider on the crease.

But during the South Africa tour of the following winter the West Indies had come calling. Gibson immediately informed team director Andy Flower. "Andy was very supportive," he says, "It was hard to go because I could see signs of England getting to where they are now. But when I started my coaching journey, I always said I wanted to coach the West Indies. Maybe it came a little bit early, but…"

Gibson's tailing off at the end of that sentence reveals the difficulties he has encountered. It has been much, much worse than he ever envisaged. Take the Twenty20-freelancing Gayle, and his protracted row with the WICB. What a palaver that has been.

On Thursday it was announced that Gayle was not now going to appear for Somerset in the Friends Life t20, so making himself available for the one-day series against England, over 14 months after last appearing for the West Indies. Gibson says he has not spoken to Gayle since last August. "I tried at the start to get involved and sort things out," says Gibson, "and I had two meetings and a long telephone conversation with Chris to try and sort it out. But that didn't really resolve anything, so I handed it over to the Board and they've been dealing with it ever since then."

Ah, those politics of Caribbean cricket. They must be hard for the coach to avoid. "No, not really," Gibson counters, "I've got a very strong CEO in Dr Ernest Hilaire, who takes care of them. You have an idea what you want for the team and you fight for that, but anything else I consider irrelevant, I stay away from."

Which is plenty. Every island seems to have its own cricketing unrest, typified by the recent moving of the last Test against Australia to Dominica, away from Guyana where there is an ongoing impasse between the cricket board and the government.

But, understandably, it is the cricket that concerns Gibson most. "The standard of domestic cricket is not as great as it was once was," he sighs, "It is not producing the international cricketers. It is something we have to look at, but it's been a challenge for some time."

The pitches don't help. Pace and bounce have been replaced mainly by spin and mystery. "Yes, the landscape has changed," he admits. "Where once there were fast bowlers bowling at 90mph there are now guys with different actions spinning the ball both ways. The pitches in Barbados and Jamaica are still capable of being quick, but people prepare pitches based on their strength, and spin has been dominating regional cricket for nearly 10 years now. There are tall, quick fast bowlers out there, but teams don't pick them if the pitch is spinning. So we're now putting five or six of that type of bowler into the High Performance Centre in Barbados, so that they can get good technical and tactical support. We will then develop them that way."

And Gibson is adamant that the interest in cricket in West Indies is still there. All the talk of American sports seizing the youth of the nation's attentions is, so he says, a "myth" and "it always has been". Indeed, crowds were noticeably larger for that recent Australia Test series. "Our cricket is lacking icons," Gibson says. "When I played there were the likes of Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Viv Richards, Malcolm Marshall. We need those sorts of heroes again. But I think the people in the Caribbean are enjoying our fighting spirit, even if we're not winning. They can see winning is not far away."

Is it, though? Not in England in May surely, with a fragile batting line-up. "Yes, it's going to be very tough," says Gibson, "It's No?7 in the world against No?1, with so many of our youngsters not having played in England against the swinging ball."

But in Kemar Roach, Fidel Edwards, Ravi Rampaul and captain Darren Sammy, they do possess a potent attack. "If you look at our attack against all the other attacks around the world in the last 12 months, then we're somewhere near the top," he says, "I think we've got a world-class bowling attack."

Gibson has always learnt well. As a bowler he went from wild at Glamorgan eventually to wily at Durham. As a coach he has learnt from Flower. "What he has done with England is pretty much what I am trying to do in the Caribbean," says Gibson, "When coaching against the West Indies I always thought them a little disorganised. I always thought if they went in with a more professional attitude, then they could do something special. As it turns out, not everybody bought into what I was trying to do at the beginning. But if you look at the team now, it is starting to buy into what I am trying to do and we are seeing some improvements."

Indeed, the fielding and the number of no-balls have improved markedly.

But they'll still get hammered.

And, sadly, we'll have to see if the coach is still smiling then.