Meet the man behind West Indies' batting resurgence who's backing them to stun England again at Lord's

Toby Radford has been working with the West Indies notoriously errant batsmen since September 2016 and has been widely praised for his work in developing talents such as Shai Hope

West Indies roared back to level the series against England with a much-improved batting display (Getty)

If the West Indies’ batting was reckless at Edgbaston, it was the polar opposite at Headingley as Stuart Law’s side caught England cold while romping to their first victory here in 17 years.

That they did was largely down to the application and grit of Kraigg Braithwaite and the youthful verve of Shai Hope, who became the first batsman in history to hit a century in both innings of a first-class match at the ground.

Watching on from the balcony at Leeds was Toby Radford, the West Indies batting coach, and a man for whom this week’s Test represents something of a homecoming. The Welshman spent two seasons as a player at Middlesex before returning to Lords, first as director of the county’s academy and then as first team coach.

Radford has been working with the West Indies notoriously errant batsmen since September 2016 and has been widely praised for his work in developing talents such as Braithwaite and Hope during a second spell with the men from the Caribbean.

And another batting display like the one witnessed in Yorkshire could send the West Indies into dreamland - and plunge England into a serious period of introspection with the Ashes looming menacingly close.

“We wanted to go as deep as we could into the final day (at Headingley), we knew that if we could get through that morning period with wickets intact then we had a chance,” he tells The Independent. “Suddenly we came out after lunch and 300 didn’t look that far away. I thought the composure showed by Kraigg Braithwaite and Shai Hope was pretty remarkable. England threw everything at us but we managed to stand firm, which was brilliant.”

It was certainly a world away from the car crash performance at Edgbaston that led most people to discount this West Indies side as little more than fodder for an England team already looking to the bigger challenge to follow.


 Hope made history at Headingley 
 (Getty)

In Birmingham, the West Indies’ fate was sealed after they lost 19 wickets on a Saturday of kamikaze batting. Instead of sending the West Indies into a spiral, though, that collapse appears to have been a catalyst for a dramatic improvement.

“No-one in that side needed telling that that performance wasn’t good enough,” says Radford. “We had a day off after the game and then a couple of days later we all sat in that same dressing room at Edgbaston and had a very, very honest chat.

"All the players spoke and all the staff spoke. We agreed that we had been timid, for whatever reason, and that we hadn’t shown enough fight. We knew that when we took to field again that we had to be up for a scrap and had to be a lot more aggressive with the ball and show a lot more fight with the bat. We needed to show that we were capable of a whole lot more.”


 Brathwaite was equally as impressive 
 (Getty)

No player better exemplified their new approach than Hope, the 23-year-old Barbadian who had shown flashes of brilliance before this series but had rarely threatened to play the kind of match-changing innings we saw at Leeds.

In scoring two hundreds, Hope showed that he had both the technique and attitude to be compared to some of the finest batsmen to play for the West Indies in the past. According to Radford, a deciding Test, with the world watching on at Lords won’t cause his heart-rate to rise.

“He’s a pretty cool individual,” says Radford. “The quality of the bowling you face in Test cricket, the pressure of playing Test cricket, takes time to adapt to. Very few players go in at that level and perform straight away. He has always had the quality, which is why the selectors have stuck with him.


 West Indies head into the final Test full of confidence 
 (Getty)

“I’m sure, with his practice ethic, his strong mind and his talent, that he’s going to be a really great player. He has that beautiful cover drive, that punch through mid-wicket, he’s good on the eye, he’s a lovely player to watch. He has been solid in defence over here. Before the tour we all talked about the need to play the ball late in England and the need to judge line and length well. Maybe not at Edgbaston, but certainly at Headingley, he left a lot of good balls.

“You’re facing Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad and they’re always around your off-stump, nipping the odd ball back and also swinging it away. Your judgement has to be spot-on and I think his discipline at knowing what to play and what not to play was as good as his fluent strokeplay.”

More of the same could spell trouble for England at Lords. And make Radford’s homecoming a very happy one indeed.