Glamorgan’s loss is Irish as Toby moves
TOBY RADFORD and Eoin Morgan began new careers at Lord’s at the same time – the Welshman as Middlesex academy coach, the Irish teenager as a batsman of outrageous ability.
Dubliner Morgan has never made any secret of Radford’s help in keeping him on the fastest of tracks towards becoming the most successful of all England’s oneday captains: “Toby helped me mould the basics of my technical game and take me to the next level.’’
Back then, Radford also worked with another Irish batsman who would make a one-day century for England in Australia, Ed Joyce, followed by two more from either side of the Irish border, Paul Stirling and Andrew Balbirnie.
Eleven years on, Radford is embarking on a new challenge – developing more Irish players for Ireland, not England. He joined the Irish revolution in Dublin this week as national academy and performance manager, all part of Cricket Ireland’s crusade for Test status.
A coach lauded by former England captain Andrew Strauss as ‘fantastic,’ will be welcomed on the other side of the Irish Sea with open arms. “Toby’s experience at international and first-class level will bring greater understanding of what it takes to perform at the highest level,’’ said Richard Holdsworth, Cricket Ireland’s performance director.
A prodigious schoolboy batsman, Radford switched from playing to coaching in his 20’s after an abortive attempt to establish himself as a first-team opener with Middlesex and then, briefly, with Sussex.
Since then he has built an enviable reputation as a coach, working with good young players and making them better. He did that in the West Indies, running their high performance centre for two years before joining the national squad as batting coach for a period climaxed by Darren Sammy’s team winning the World T20 Cup four years ago.
The job Radford started in Malahide on Monday was his first in cricket since his premature departure as Glamorgan head coach last autumn. While the Irish will make him feel at home, the 44year-old could be forgiven for reflecting about the old adage of a prophet without honour in his own land.
There are those who believe he was shabbily treated by Glamorgan, at a time when he appeared to have cured the county’s chronic failure to win Championship matches with any consistency.
This season, under the same captain, Jacques Rudolph, Glamorgan won their first County Championship match at the ninth attempt – beating Derbyshire at Colwyn Bay. Radford had been appointed in November 2014 by Hugh Morris, the county’s director of cricket, and contracted through to the end of this season.
“I was asked to do two things, namely to improve results and develop young players, especially Welsh players,’’ he said.
“We finished the first year in mid-table. During the winter I put in a lot of one-to-one coaching work with young batsmen like Aneurin Donald and David Lloyd.
“David had done well in second eleven cricket but he’d had difficulty bridging the gap and making an impact in the fourday game. He had a lot of doubts as to whether he’d make it.
“I’d spend hour after hour at the bowling machine working to improve his technique. We built up a really good relationship. David clearly had the ability and the desire to get better. He worked incredibly hard at his game last winter and it’s wonderful to see him reaping the reward this summer. The same goes for Aneurin. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if both win higher honours. Glamorgan will be well aware that the more successful their young players become, the more likely it is that the big First Division clubs will come knocking on the door.
“In his dual role as chief executive and director of cricket, Hugh Morris’ biggest job was to balance the books. He managed to do it well and it was commonly known that we had to offload a number of players.
“The second year saw a big improvement. We won four Championship matches in a row, which equalled the Glamorgan record. Promotion to the First Division became a realistic target until we fell away during the