Richard Pybus to become Windies' head coach

West Indies' high-performance director Richard Pybus on Monday agreed to become the head coach of the Caribbean team.

The head coach position had been vacant ever since Stuart Law resigned less than two years into his job as he signed a four-year contract with the English county team Middlesex.

Pybus, who will be replacing the interim coach Nic Pothas, will sign the contract that will effectively run until the 2019 Test series against India, which follows the ODI World Cup in England, ESPNcricinfo reported.

The fielding coach Pothas was made interim head coach for the recent tour of Bangladesh that followed Law's exit. West Indies lost both Test and ODI series, while won the T20Is.

Pybus, who took over as high-performance director in February, worked alongside selectors and coaches across all levels of the game in the Caribbean. He had also served as West Indies' director of cricket from 2013 to 2016, as he chose not to renew the contract.

However, Pybus' return to West Indies cricket was not welcomed by the fraternity. The former West Indies opener Desmond Haynes questioned the process of appointing him.

"It would be great to ask the Cricket West Indies (CWI) president Dave Cameron about this appointment and when was this position advertised," Haynes wrote in a Facebook post.

All-rounder Darren Sammy, who captained West Indies when Pybus was director of cricket, expressed disbelief at his return.

"Lies lies lies... Must be fake news," Sammy tweeted, and a day later, in response to a reply said, "Well I am still hoping that nightmare is not true #fakenews he is not coming back at CWI."

Pybus' term as director of cricket was controversial in the Caribbean cricket system as it was he who drafted the policy that made participation in West Indies' domestic competitions mandatory for international selection across formats. This resulted in a number of senior players choosing to focus solely on playing T20 leagues around the world.