Batting legend Vivian Richards has come out in defence of sacked West Indies bowling coach Curtly Ambrose.

Ambrose was sacked as the West Indies bowling coach and replaced by Roddy Estwick ahead of next month's tri-nation series with the visiting Australia and South Africa teams.

"If you have technical issues, then you shouldn't be in the team and I could be wrong, but that's the way I look at it," Ambrose said earlier of the West Indies coach Phil Simmons' rationale for removing him as bowling coach.

Richards was in complete agreement.

"That's for the academies, in my opinion, and he (Ambrose) put it so perfectly when he said that if you are going to need all this technical help later on when you are part of the senior team, it means that something is wrong and it's quite mind-boggling," Richards was quoted as saying by The Barbados Today on Thursday.