West Indies coach Ottis Gibson has not closed the door on Ramnaresh Sarwan returning to the West Indies team in future. However, he disputes some comments made recently by the estranged batsman.

Sarwan, who was not given a retainer contract by the West Indies Cricket Board in 2010 and has not played for the regional team since 2011, told BBC Sport in an interview in May:

"The coach said some negative stuff that hurt me mentally and emotionally. Mentally I was broken down, not from the stress of playing, it's just certain individuals have drained me mentally. It took a toll on my confidence and the way I play. Everything went away."

He added: "I'm away from all those problems, my mind is at ease and I have had nothing to worry about, no coach to say any negative things."

However, asked on Monday whether he would welcome Sarwan back in the team, Gibson told the Express: "I've never had an issue with Sarwan. Never once in my three years here have I had an issue with Sarwan. I was very disappointed to hear the stuff that Sarwan said because I don't know where there was an issue. But I've always said we can't go where we want to go without our experienced players."

Sarwan is currently attached to English county Leicestershire and has expressed no interest in returning to the current West Indies set-up.

However, Gibson said further: "We need experienced players that are committed...committed to the cause of the team, whether that be fitness, whether that be attitude, whether that be supporting other people. But we need to change the culture around the team and culture change is difficult."

He is satisfied that progress is being made in this area.

"I think it has moved a long way," he said. "We work a lot harder, we spend more time actually talking about the game, team meetings are a lot more interactive... We analyse the game, so when we go out on the field we have an idea of what we're gonna do... The cricket is starting to take shape in that sense."

Besides Sarwan, opener Chris Gayle was another player who found himself embroiled in controversy following public statements about Gibson and the West Indies Cricket Board.

However, following a year's absence, he returned to the team during the limited overs leg of the recent tour of England and scored centuries against New Zealand in both the ODI and just-concluded Test series which the West Indies won in the Caribbean.

Gibson said Gayle had made "a huge difference" to the team's performance.

"He's been back to his normal self. We had a chat when he came back into the team and I said, 'look, just be yourself; be the person that you are, the person that you were before all this stuff started and, more importantly, just enjoy your cricket'.

"It seems to me that when our players go out into the world to play cricket, when you see them on TV, they look like they are enjoying their cricket. Sometimes when you see them on our TV, it doesn't look like they are enjoying it as much. I just urged him to enjoy his cricket and if you're not enjoying, come and say so."

Gibson's contract with the West Indies Board comes to an end in February next year. But the former England bowling coach feels he has unfinished business with his current team.

"Of course I want to stay on," he said. "I don't think the job that I've come to do is finished and I would want to be here to

finish the job.

"When I signed the contract in the first instance, it was a three-year contract at which time the Board will review the things that I said I was gonna do. I think we are somewhere towards achieving what I said we could do. But it must be said there were some things that, looking back, you hope that didn't happen.

Obviously Chris missing a lot of cricket is one of those things but, that said, I think there has been real development in the team as well."