Former West Indies batting coach Toby Radford has spoken glowing of sacked interim coach Richard Pybus, insisting that he was a fan of the Englishman’s methods.

Pybus, a former Director of Cricket, served in the post from January to April of last year before being replaced by Floyd Reifer, a few weeks ahead of the 2019 World Cup.  Although his tenure was brief, Pybus is credited with orchestrating an outstanding performance from the West Indies cricket team that hosted England last year.

The Test team went on to reclaim the Wisden Trophy with a 2-1 series win over England and also matched up to the highly ranked tourists in the One Day International format where they secured a 2-2 draw.  For some critics, the performances had nothing to do with Pybus but was merely a case of the team beginning to discover its full potential.  Radford, who served as a member of Pybus’ staff, however, disagrees.

“I thought he was exceptional.  Where Richard Pybus was very good was setting the agenda of where he believed the team could go, and getting the players to buy into ‘this is where we were headed’ Cameron told the Mason and Guest radio program.

“I remember the way he drew up on a flip chart, ‘what does a world’s number one look like?’ ‘If you took the world’s best team what is it that they do in Test match cricket?’ He got the players to write down what they needed to deliver. ‘We have to bat for 120 overs. We have to get 350 plus.’  He had all these things and the players were coming up with it, so it gave the players ownership.  The players bought into this vision of what we were trying to deliver.  So there were clear targets,” he added.

‘Another thing he brilliantly did he put the list of 11 players up, he put the England 11 up and he started to do match-ups.  He would say ‘Shannon you have to take more wickets than Anderson’ and it was great there was competition for players with the opposition number.  He had all these kinds of things.  I think he was excellent as a manager and motivator.”