You don't go in and make wholesale changes overnight - Toby Radford

Afghanistan's newly appointed batting coach Toby Radford is relishing the challenge of working with a gifted group of cricketers. On the eve of his first assignment, against West Indies, Radford spoke at length about stepping into the role, the challenges ahead, and the direction he hopes to take Afghanistan's batting.

Excertps...

How excited are you for this new challenge?

Very excited. I mean, it's been clear, I think, for anyone to see in the last few years how the side has really gone forward and done, you know, extremely well on an international scale. And I think the opportunity to work with what's clearly a good team and a lot of good young players coming through, I find that really exciting. You know, Jonathan Trott's done a great job there and the whole setup's going really well and so for me it is a nice opportunity to go and work with good players, a team that's doing well and is going forward. I think that makes it very exciting.

What will be your biggest challenge, joining the team so close to the West Indies series, with just one assignment to prepare the batters ahead of the World Cup?

So for me it'll be about getting to know, you know, the Afghanistan players and how we play and just quickly hitting the ground running and getting into building good relationships and working on their cricket, you know, any areas that we feel that we can be better on. Obviously, my remit is the batting. So, you know, working with those batters and seeing where they're at and any areas that we can keep improving. Obviously, I've worked with the West Indies a lot, so I'll have a good idea about them in terms of playing against them because of my time out there.

What excites you about the West Indies series ahead?

I mean, the West Indies, obviously this format you know they've had great success over the years. They've won the World Cup in short format over recent years. So, you know, it's a side that can really fire in that competition and they have great pride in that competition. So, it'll be great. It'll be a good test of where we're at the moment, playing against them. Hopefully we can take some really good positive vibes into the World Cup from that series. And I think that's where the focus will be is- and then anything that, you know, you can improve, again you use it in a way that you can then take forward into the World Cup, you know, just a few weeks away. So good series, be a very competitive opposition, and looking forward to it. I'm sure all the players are.

You've worked closely with Gurbaz during the BPL and also seen several Afghan players up close there. How do you think that experience will help when you step into the Afghanistan dressing room?

Yeah, Gurbaz was brilliant. I mean, it's the first time I've met him and worked with him, so that's been great the last couple of weeks. Gurbaz is great and, you know, a talent isn't he? He's a really exciting batter. So it was good to work with him and to carry that on now over the next few weeks will be really interesting as well. I love the way he spoke as well with the team out in Bangladesh, you know, very positive guy, experienced guy. So, you know, he's going to offer a lot, isn't he?

Recently, Gurbaz mentioned that he doesn't want to change his game because he feels it's working well for him. At the same time, there's a view that he may benefit from picking his moments a little better. What's your take on that?

I'm going in with an open mind. I mean, my first thing whenever I go in... I've worked in lots of places over the years. I think this is the sixth international cricket board I've worked with over a pretty long coaching career. And the first thing you do is you don't go in and make too many changes straight away. You go in and observe. I think you go in and watch, see what you've got, you know, get to... as I said, build relationships, see where the strengths are, and then gradually you'll see if there's areas that can be expanded and made even better. So, you know, I won't be going making wholesale changes overnight. You go in and have a good look first and see what's going. Clearly, a lot of things are working really well individually for players and for them collectively as a team because, as I said, the improvement over recent years has been great and performances are on the up. So there's a lot of stuff going really well and hopefully just be adding to that and trying to keep that climb going and that positivity going.

So you don't want Gurbaz to change anything just yet...

Yeah, I mean, I certainly at the moment wouldn't be wanting to change Gurbaz. I mean, he's a fine player. He's had a lot of success and hopefully long may that continue. And as he spoke about it during the games in this BPL, you know, in this Bangladesh Premier League, it's about playing the situation and playing the opposition and being sensible. And he would often chat to the batting group about those things. So he clearly sees it the same way, you know.

Having watched a number of these players up close, how well do you feel you understand their strengths, and how does that help as you begin work with them?

Yes. I, yeah, I've seen, you know, I haven't seen them in depth, but I've seen bits of them. And my plan now over the next few days is to go through some footage and really sort of get to know what we've got. I have seen matches, I've seen them play and been really impressed and excited by what's, you know, what the team has. But it'll be nice to look in a bit more detail now sort of from a tactical and technical point of view and to see where we're really at.