Is it time for West Indies to go for an overseas coach? That's the question I'm forced to ask after another unsuccessful tour. The venue was new - Sharjah - but it was the same old story. West Indies have now lost 23 of their last 27 overseas Tests. The current coach and captain, Roger Harper and Carl Hooper, seem unable to inspire the players. Take the fielding. Apart from the odd good catch - there was a blinder from Merv Dillon in the outfield in the first Test - it was consistently bad at Sharjah. At times they looked uninspired, and it wasn't just the lack of atmosphere caused by the tiny crowds. Carl Hooper observed that in the field you prepare yourself every time for the ball to come your way. But his players, he noted, seemed surprised when it did come. That's a terrible indictment not just of his own motivational skills, but those of Harper.

Harper was the most brilliant fielder of his generation. In my view, he was a better slip catcher than Mark Waugh, the Test record-holder - Harper sometimes took catches from third slip that were zooming through fourth - and was as athletic as Jonty Rhodes in the outfield. If Harper can't get the team to do the fielding basics well, how can he help them rectify other parts of their game, such as their batting? The West Indies selectors should ask him to step aside, with a view to appointing another coach.

They should throw the selection process open to candidates from outside the Caribbean. Apart from Duncan Fletcher, John Wright is coaching India, and Rodney Marsh has taken charge of England's academy youngsters after many Ashes battles from the other side of the fence. Harper, a bright man, could become the new man's assistant and the fielding coach, and would be a candidate for the main job again when the head coach steps down.

Foreign coaches are now widespread in football, and even the country that invented the game has a Swede in charge of the national team. Only the very best sides (and in cricket that means Australia) can afford to restrict the pool of candidates to natives.

Another failure that can be laid at Harper's door is that promising young players have gone backwards. The most shocking example is Wavell Hinds, who made a high-class 165 against Pakistan in the Caribbean two years ago, but made the squad to Sharjah only as a replacement for the injured Ramnaresh Sarwan. In the event he made 126 runs in four innings in the Tests, but that's nowhere near the returns he should be aiming at now. Chris Gayle partly made up for a nightmare tour of Sri Lanka with 144 runs at 36. He needs to score heavily against India in the Caribbean this spring to avoid the suspicion that all the negative baggage surrounding the team isn't weighing him down.

The usually reliable Shivnarine Chanderpaul had a below-par tour, with 101 runs at 25.25. And whatever happened to one-day specialist Ricardo Powell? In the bowling, Merv Dillon is supposed to be one of the spearheads now that Curtly and Courtney have retired. His 10 wickets cost 30 runs each. There's a lot of cause for worry. The spark has got to come from somewhere, but where? The best place to start would be a foreign coach, with fresh thinking. He'd have to be given a say in selection, too.

Let's look at Fletcher again (and forget for a moment England's one-day series loss in New Zealand). The things he brings are a game plan and a mid-term plan. He and Nasser Hussain outwitted a classier Pakistan side on their own turf, stealing the series in the last game. He pilfered another overseas series from the Sri Lankans - no easy task with Murali on his home tracks, as the West Indies found recently.

Last month Fletcher schemed his way to a drawn one-day series in India from 3-1 down. Admittedly he had a bit of help from India, but you make your own luck sometimes. He spotted the classy Marcus Trescothick, and made sure he got into the side, and helped the talented but raw Andrew Flintoff to become a better-rounded cricketer (maybe that should be less-rounded).

It's still hard for a weaker side to overcome a stronger one, but tactical thinking can help. It's all about making the most of your resources, and exploiting the other team's weaknesses. Just ask New Zealand, who recently stopped the mighty Australians from attending their own party, the final of the triangular one-day tournament. The days when West Indies could win without thinking are long gone.

Orin Gordon is a reporter with the BBC World Service. His Caribbean View appeared weekly on Wisden.com during West Indies' tour of England in 2000.

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