HP head coach aims at producing quality test cricketers

High Performance (HP) unit head coach Toby Radford said that he wants to produce more and more quality test cricketers from his HP team who can play T20 and 50-over cricket equally well. Radford today joined a virtual press brief and spoke about his visions and plannings regarding the current HP team. 
Bangladesh Cricket Team lack quality test cricketers even though they have a great number of One-Day and T20 players to choose from. Radford thinks this is due to the current cricket culture of franchise cricket tournaments and he wants to produce test cricketers who will be equally adept in all the other formats. 
Radford also thinks that the lack of quality test cricketers is the result of watching too many T20 games and it gives young cricketers the opportunity to earn more money in a short time. He also believes that the test players are the best. 
"I don't want to create just T20 players, but top-end Test cricketers who can then play T20 and 50-over cricket. In my view, Test players are the best players in world cricket. I don't mind these young players in the tournament but I want them to have a really good game that holds up in a red-ball, five-day game anywhere in the world," said the HP head coach. 

Radford, though thinks this bunch of young cricketers have a great prospect, has warned beforehand that not everyone will reach top of their potential and give a long time service to the national team. He mentioned the future of Bangladesh Cricket is bright and is going to be built around these young exciting cricketers. He aims to deliver as many players as he can to the national team. 
"Some will fly, some will hit a ceiling at a slightly lower level. The aim is to get a number of these pushing for the international team in different formats and get Bangladesh up the world rankings. It is my aim." 

Radford further mentioned that he has been impressed with facilities in HP Centre here in Dhaka. "I have been impressed with the quality of the facilities in the High Performance Centre. We have a lovely lecture room, a big indoor school. the lovely pitch in the background. We have outdoor nets. These are great facilities to work with young talent," Radford said. 

International tours are important for young players. The world cup winning Under-19 squad had quite a few tours abroad and they got their result with the world cup crown. Almost everyone of that squad admitted that the foreign tours in the last two and a half years helped them immensely and they were used to playing in different conditions for that. Radford believes these HP cricketers need the same treatment as well. They will have to face the likes of Mitchel Starc or James Anderson when they get into the national side and play in England or Australia. 
"If they go to Australia, they can face Mitchell Starc on a quick wicket in Perth, if they go to England they can play the swing and seam of Jimmy Anderson. The only way you can do that is if you take these players into other environments and give them experiences of facing those types of players so that when they get into the international side, they've been there before and they can cope with it," Radford added. 
Toby Radford was appointed as the new HP team head coach back in August and he began his coaching from yesterday at Mirpur.