by CRAIG COZIER

NEW WEST INDIES CRICKET MANAGER Joel Garner is promising a tough approach to the job.

The giant, outstanding former West Indies fast bowler will have strict rules in place for the regional team's upcoming tour of Australia.

"They are some things that are non-negotiable, things like discipline, punctuality and I think that players know and understand that some things are not negotiable," he said yesterday.

In his 58 Tests between 1977 and 1987, Garner played in 30 victories and just five defeats and now hopes to instil some of those habits of success.

"I'm looking at bringing back some of those values that made us great back into the team," he said. "The West Indies team of the 1970s and 1980s was not all talent. We were successful because we worked hard and we took the time out to do the things that were right to bring the cricket up."

Garner said he was taken aback at the lack of ambition of some of the up-and-coming players.

"Right now, it is like everybody is happy to make the team and, judging from the reports that came out of Guyana recently in the President's Cup, how some of our young players who have just made the team are behaving, it says that we have our job cut out.

"If you are only going to come to the party and not participate in the party, then I would say you're in the wrong sport," he added.

"I think self-discipline and personal discipline are important. The players have to understand that they are professional cricketers, they have to look after themselves a lot better. They have to be prepared to work that little bit extra to get to where they want to go.

"It is how you set about to do the job. It is preparation for the job. Not only the playing side of it. There has to be a little bit more maturity in the way we go about our business."

Garner also warned that if the West Indies failed to improve, they could be left behind by the bigger nations in the international game.

"We have to look at the future of West Indies cricket. We have to look at what is happening in world cricket," he added. "There are divisions where you have four or five world teams who are at the top and they want to go it alone.

"They want to play more cricket between themselves because they know of the bargaining power.

"We have to understand that we have to get from the position at No. 8 to be in those top four to be a force to be reckoned with in world cricket," he added.

Garner admitted that his squad was not ideally prepared for it's latest mission - regaining the Frank Worrell Trophy against world number one Australia in three Tests Down Under beginning later this month.

"We are behind. I would say that we are about six to eight weeks behind where we would want to be," the former Test fast bowler said. "We would want to have a squad that is totally fit, 120 per cent fit. I don't think they've played enough cricket. Match fitness is a different fitness."

Garner, president of the Barbados Cricket Association and a West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) member, said the late resolution of the long-running contract dispute between the WICB and the West Indies Players' Association was a major obstacle.

"If you look at the events of the last three, four months, I don't think that the One-Day tournament was only to prepare a team or to pick a team to go to Australia," he said. "There were issues, there were things that were put in place to see who would be around, who would turn up to the tournament, who would make themselves available."

The 57-year-old Garner, a veteran of three Test tours of Australia in 1979-80, 1981-82 and 1984-85, said his first order of business would be to swiftly erase any tensions between the returning players and the four who chose not to strike and bring a renewed team spirit among the group.

"We have a challenging period of time right now with the merger of the fellows who played during the strike and those fellows who were on strike," Garner said.

"It's going to be a challenge to get everything working smoothly and get them to play competitive cricket while we're in Australia."