BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos – Leg­endary all-rounder Sir Gar­ry Sobers has de­scribed West In­dies stroke-mak­er Shai Hope as a play­er of “class” and says he can be­come even bet­ter with a few ad­just­ments to his game.

“I saw him when the Pres­i­dent (of Crick­et West In­dies) asked me to come down and do some coach­ing with the team for four or five weeks,” Sir Gar­ry said in ref­er­ence to the first time he saw Hope.

“The first time I saw him, I said, ‘Pfft, this is class! This is class’. This young­ster has re­al tal­ent and he can re­al­ly play.”

Sir Gar­ry, who was speak­ing dur­ing a vis­it to the West In­dies camp ahead of the Test se­ries which starts here Wednes­day, said while he had been im­pressed with Hope’s ar­ray of strokes, there were a few sug­ges­tions he had made.

“He had one shot that I didn’t want to take away from him be­cause he played it all the time. [He] was hit­ting the off-spin­ners, try­ing to hit them through mid-off and that kind of thing,” said Sir Gar­ry, Bar­ba­dos’ on­ly liv­ing Na­tion­al Hero.

“Nev­er take away what a play­er has. Try to help him with the oth­ers or try to help him to play that shot bet­ter. Af­ter about two or three weeks watch­ing him, I just said to him, ‘Shai, that’s your shot, don’t lose it, don’t let any­body take that away from you but I can just give you an­oth­er string to your bow.”

He ex­plained: “There are on­ly two men be­hind square (on the leg-side), that’s a big area for two men to con­trol. If you went over to the off stump a lit­tle bit, do you know how many runs you could score through there?

“They can’t put any­body else there, on­ly two. Try it, if you can’t do it, put it away, play the way you play but just give it a try in the nets, prac­tise it and see how it works for you’.”

Af­ter a less than stel­lar start to his Test ca­reer, Hope has emerged as one of the lead­ers of the Windies bat­ting unit. In 2017, he hit two hun­dreds in the sec­ond Test at Leeds to steer West In­dies to an as­ton­ish­ing come-from-be­hind win over Eng­land.

The 25-year-old al­so ex­cels in the one-day for­mat where he av­er­ages 47 and in the Twen­ty20 for­mat where he shone dur­ing the re­cent Bangladesh tour.

He said hav­ing Sir Gar­ry around had been a huge boost for the en­tire squad.

“Sir Gar­ry is an awe­some per­son and it’s al­ways great to see him and have him around. He has tremen­dous pres­ence and you can learn so much from just lis­ten­ing to him as he speaks and shares his knowl­edge of the game and es­pe­cial­ly how to go about your bat­ting,” Hope said.

“Hav­ing him join us is an in­spi­ra­tion. It’s the kind of thing that can give you a boost ahead of a game and a se­ries. It’s al­ways a ho­n­our to be in his pres­ence. He has vast knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence and we are hap­py he took the come and speak with us.”

(CMC)

y: Classy Hope can get even better

West Indies and Barbados batting star Shai Hope.