An experienced and competent coach can make all the difference in ensuring that a talented side achieves its potential and goes on to win trophies. Currently serving as Head of High Performance for the Bangladesh Cricket Board, Toby Radford is an experienced cricket coach who has previously worked with the West Indies team that won the T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka, Middlesex County Cricket Club and a ECB national coach.
In this exclusive interview with SPOGO, Toby Radford speaks about the evolution of high performance coaching in sport, working with the West Indies team, Bangladesh’s performance at the T20 World Cup, being crowned the domestic T20 champions with Middlesex County Cricket Club, creating batting booth, advice for aspiring cricketers and more!
Q 1) How has the role of high performance coaching evolved / transformed over the years?
I set up the high performance academy at Middlesex about 20 years ago. I had a very young Steven Finn when he was just 15 or 16 years old. We also had the likes of Owen Morgan and Dawid Malan come along so working in high performance in those early days, it was very enjoyable to put the program together and work with those talented young players. After that Middlesex role I ended up in the high performance team in the West Indies which was brilliant, I really enjoyed that. A young Jason Holder, Shannon Gabriel and quite a few of the players who are in the West Indian senior team currently.
I think it’s always lovely to have high quality young players and in a way try to fast track them to perform at a higher level. Hopefully they always go on to play at a higher level and what you’re doing when you’re running a high performance centre is fast tracking them, getting them there quicker. I’m sure they would have reached their pinnacle anyway, it’s just the speed at which they get there.
Q 2) How was your experience being with the West Indies team especially when they won the T20 World Cup in 2012?
I had a fantastic experience being with the West Indies when we beat Sri Lanka in the final at Colombo. Some of the younger players coming through who I had worked with in high performance. It was the pinnacle for me in coaching which had developed during my Middlesex days to the West Indies days and then winning the World Cup. During the competition, we believed we could actually win the trophy and the team was well balanced. It was one of the most powerful T20 sides as Chris Gayle was at his peak and Darren Sammy was leading the team by example. There was a lot of pressure in the final as we were 20 off 3 and Marlon Samuels played a wonderful innings to take the team through and overall it was a great coaching experience for me with the team.
Q 3) The Bangladesh team has shown significant improvement during the 2021 season in Test matches, what are some of the changes that have taken place during this time?
I’ve worked with the high performance of the younger players and some of those lads are now coming into the side. Naim Shaikh has played quite well recently in the World Cup and the youngsters are getting into the shorter format but actually in the time that i have spent there when we run camps with the high performance team, we have talked about not just being good on your home pitches and home conditions but being very competitive away from home. Specifically with the batters, it was talking about right technique and being able to play the quicker bouncing or the swinging ball if you’re going to England. In terms of bowlers changing the lengths when they play away from home, mainly working with the team to be competitive away from home.
Q 4) The T20 World Cup this year saw the Bangladesh team suffering major defeats. What exactly was going on in the dressing room at the time of crisis?
It will be difficult for me to answer that since I don't work with the senior side. I work with the team underneath, I just wouldn't have the knowledge of what was going in the dressing room. I was following the game back in the UK just like how the rest of us were watching it, the team was a bit low on confidence and couldn’t get going on. I have worked with many sides over the years in T20 and won domestic trophies and World Cups. You can get in a great place in a T20 where you know you are going to win, it's a confidence thing and likewise after a couple of losses the confidence goes away. The team got into a bit of a rut, low on confidence, couldn't get a win, even when you try too hard and it gets even worse. I have seen teams going through that where certain players couldn’t perform for whatever reason and that can happen to any player in any team around the world.
Also read: Whatever I have achieved is because of my process – Indian cricketer Atif Attarwala
Q 5) How was your experience at Middlesex County Cricket Club and how proud are you that the team were crowned domestic T20 Champions in 2008 while you were head coach?
It was great, the day of the finals was wonderful. The semifinal and the final were on the same day. We won the final off the last ball against Kent and it was unbelievable because we were there for the entire day and it went down to the wire. We needed a dot ball off the last one to win and we got it. It was a great day, I was very delighted for the players. It was a bit like the West Indies team that won the World Cup. That was a very balanced T-20 side. We had Murali Karthik who is a brilliant overseas spinner, Shaun Udal who played for England as an off spinner. We had a lot of high quality left hand batters like Andrew Strauss who would play when available, Ed Joyce international player. Dawid Malan and Eoin Morgan who have obviously gone on to achieve big things at the international stage.
We also had some pace in the form of Australian left arm seamer Dirk Nannes who used to put teams on the backfoot and pick up 2-3 wickets early on an. Then the likes of Karthik and Udal would come in the middle overs and make it difficult for oppositions to score. We were very balanced and we won virtually every game we played leading up to the final. I think we won 12 out of 14 matches which was amazing. A lovely personal day and great for the club who hadn't won a trophy in a while. Delighted for the players as well because they want to win trophies, that's why they play the game. The most bizzare thing happened in the dressing room afterwards when the Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe who was watching the game came into the dressing room. He gave a speech to the players, it was hilarious and surreal at the same time. It was a terrific day and great for the club.
Q 6) What made you think of creating an online platform like batting booth and how has it changed in a year?
It came around last year when the pandemic was at its worst. When I was working with the West Indies senior team, I was still living in the U.K and would travel to wherever the team was playing. In between series, to keep in touch with players, whether it was a Jason Holder or Roston Chase, I would ask them to send me footage of them batting in the nets so that I would be able to look at it back home. When the pandemic hit last year I thought players all over the world can't get to their coaches or their nets. Why not offer them the service I've been giving to international players which is to analyse their footage and be able to give them constructive criticism, areas to work on. That's why I added the batting booth to my website and it really took off. Players from all over the world send me their footage and I make recommendations, take still images and put some drawings which have been powerful. Even now when we have got back to hands-on coaching, I still do it which is great because players can access you and you can get back to them very quickly with some help.
Q 7) Can you give some tips to youngsters on how to enhance their game and what should the key focus area be?
I always believe in having very good basics. I was doing a presentation for some coaches up north and I talked about something called the five fundamentals. When you analyse the world's best batsmen, even though they have different shots, different flair and they might play a slightly different way, they all tend to meet the five key things. This fits Babar Azam, Virat Kohli and all the other great batsmen. They all tend to have their head on off stump when the ball is being released. They align their body back to the bowler's stump to keep themselves side onto the stumps. They control their bat with the top hand so the top hand is controlling the bat swing. They track the ball and don't move too early. They wait and wherever the ball ends up they move there, they wait for a long time. The last thing is that they play from a stable base because that gives you better control of the shot, better timing and better power. Those five things for me are the key when I have any youngster and I look at whether he is meeting those five things and if not can we try and make him meet them. If you meet those things then you are generally going to turn out to be a great player.
