By Tony Cozier At the ICC World Cup In CHANDIGARH
They wore the maroon of the West Indies as team mates in nine One-Day Internationals in Sharjah and Australia in the mid-1990s but Ottis Gibson and Phil Simmons were in different colours and in different roles at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in the Mohali district of this northern Indian city today (overnight south Caribbean time).
Their immediate task was to direct their teams in a key group stage World Cup match, Gibson still in maroon as West Indies head coach, Simmons in green as his counterpart for Ireland.
Victory would place either close to a place in a knockout, quarter-final after which anything is possible. But they both know full well the pitfalls confronting sporting