Toby Radford appointed West Indies batting coach

Toby Radford (Pic credit: Independent)

West Indies Cricket Board has appointed Middlesex coach Toby Radford the batting coach of the West Indies cricket team. This is the first appointed following the sacking of the head coach Phil Simmons.

Michael Muirhead, the president of the West Indies Cricket Board confirmed this development and maintained that he will serve as the batting coach for the Pakistan series, and then a call will be taken about his future with the team.

Radford has been associated with West Indies cricket earlier too when he served as the as the batting coach under previous head coach Ottis Gibson. He was also part of the West Indies support staff which helped the team win the 2012 World T20. He will join Henderson Springer who replaced Phil Simmons as the head coach of the team.

“He knows the youngsters well and had done well especially with them. We’ll engage as and when we need him," Muirhead informed media after this appointment.

The WICB have been in the news recently after they removed Darren Sammy as the captain of the T20 team months after he had led them to their second World T20 title. The board then went on to sack Phil Simmons too and said that the coach did not quite match the philosophy of the board.

Under Simmons, West Indies had an envious record in Twenty20s, but they struggled to find feet in Test matches and One Day Internationals.

Former captain Darren Sammy blasted the board for removing Simmons.

“So after the publicity stunt in Fort Lauderdale the first so call plan to move West Indies Cricket forward is to Fire the Coach just 2days before a tour..Just prove to me what I already knew. If the blind leads the blind they are bound to fall in a pit,” Sammy said.