|| CF Correspondent ||
Bangladesh High Performance head coach Toby Radford is eyeing to develop Test cricketers through developing the technique in the HP camp.
BCB appointed former West Indies assistant and batting coach Toby Radford as the head coach of the HP unit a one year agreement beginning from August 2020 after the post went vacant after the resignation of Simon Helmut.
‘’I was with the West Indies team when we played Bangladesh two years ago. Tests were over in three days. Pace of Shannon Gabriel and the rest of the fast bowlers blew away Bangladesh’s top-order. Then we saw a very different Bangladesh side with the white-ball formats. They won both the ODIs and T20Is. I have told the board that I want to create a group of players that can really stand up in Test cricket. They can be technically tight, face 90 miles an hour bowling and bat for five hours. They can bowl in long spells. The whole of this 14-15 days in camp is red-ball cricket. We have got bowling machines turned up, short and swinging. It is designed to test technique and work on the areas that need working on. According to the local coaches, the young players don’t play a lot of red-ball cricket. The mindset is about scoring all the time. The problem is when you got three slips and a gully and they are coming at you, you want to be behind the ball and leaving the ball. You don’t want to be inside it,’’ said Radford,
“This whole period for me is technique, testing them, getting players that can deliver in a Test team. I also believe, and I did a presentation with all the players yesterday, that if you look at the best players in world cricket like Kane Williamson, Virat Kohli, Ben Stokes and Steve Smith, they are all good in all formats. They are all good Test players. They have a good basic technique, and once you have that, you can then develop the funky T20 stuff. I am working on them having a good, solid technique first. I threw balls for four hours this morning, and I had a bloke throwing at them at 90 miles an hour. The idea was to test them for five-day cricket. You have to leave balls and get behind balls. Duck under them, be gutsy. Get forward. It is a test of what you want in Test cricket. It is the focus at the moment. The T20 and 50-over stuff comes later. I want to see the high-end players first. Let’s get the chassis of the car built before we get the alloys. I’d like to see Bangladesh be really competitive in Tests, but not just in Bangladesh. The only way you can play against Mitchell Starc in Australia is if you turn the bowling machine up and really get people used to it and techniques to cope with it. It is my whole philosophy,’’ he added.
