There’s a story about Phil Salt’s early years in Barbados that has entered folklore. It’s when as a teenager he accidentally took home Sir Garfield Sobers’ takeaway so starstruck was he at meeting the West Indies great while waiting to pick up his own family’s meal at an Indian restaurant.
In the intervening years, Barbados, India and cricket have shaped Salt’s life. And he could come full circle at the end of next month if he helps England lift the Twenty20 World Cup on the Caribbean island where he spent much of his youth.
After a stellar six months that has seen him hit back-to-back T20 hundreds for England and tear apart Indian Premier League bowling attacks, Salt will head into the World Cup in the Caribbean and United States as one of the most feared white-ball openers on the planet.
He may have been a T20 World Cup winner in 2022, when he was parachuted into the team at the semi-final stage in place of the injured Dawid Malan. But the 27-year-old has truly established himself with England over the past six months, with his performances in this year’s IPL cementing his status as one of the world’s most destructive hitters.
Born in north Wales, Salt moved to Barbados aged nine after his father Chris, a property developer, relocated the family. While there, he got hooked on cricket and spent time with some of the Caribbean’s greatest players, including Sobers, to whom Salt had to return the food after his dad realised his son’s error.
At the Wanderers Cricket Club where he played, he also picked up batting tips from Gordon Greenidge, one of the biggest hitters in the pre-T20 era, and was coached by Philo Wallace. Other notable names a young Salt rubbed shoulders with were Jason Holder and Shai Hope, both in the West Indies World Cup squad, plus Jofra Archer, likely to line up in the same XI as Salt when England start their tournament against Scotland back in Barbados on 4 June.
Yet having fallen in love with cricket in the Caribbean, Salt’s relationship with the game continued when he won a scholarship aged 13 to Reed’s School in Surrey, which counts actor Tom Hardy and tennis player Tim Henman among its former pupils.
Boarding while his family remained in the Caribbean, the school’s professional coach Keith Medlycott, the former Surrey spinner who toured the West Indies with England in 1990, took Salt under his wing.
“Although he was a little stocky guy when he arrived he was a natural sportsman,” Medlycott says. “And, obviously, from a cricketing perspective he had huge potential.”
Medlycott, Surrey’s coach during a highly successful period between 1997 and 2003, is still close with his former pupil.
“We speak regularly, maybe twice a week sometimes,” he says. “He came over as a boarder. I was living on site. He would come across to see my son and play a bit of Xbox or whatever.
“It was probably nice to have a touch of family lifestyle. It was a nice period for him being very alone but able to talk cricket, be involved in cricket.
“Ironically, he was a lot more solid as a cricketer then, a lot more orthodox in what he did. The one thing that made him stand out was his ability to pick up a length or back-of-a-length delivery much quicker than many other players, probably from his time in the Caribbean. I think that’s still the case. It’s made him extremely difficult to bowl at over the years.”
Salt is the first England men’s player to score two T20 international centuries, both coming back-to-back games against the West Indies in Grenada and Trinidad last December. And his early experiences in the Caribbean shaped his approach.
“He grew up and played with quite a few of the West Indian players that are playing now, especially the Bajans,” Medlycott says.
“Over there, he probably had to grow up quickly. You know in the Caribbean they’d be testing out whether a young English boy can play the short ball, whether he’s brave enough. He’d have to go through many of those challenges.
“We went over on a Barbados tour with the school and you could see the people wherever we went still knew Phil and treated him as a Bajan which is testament to him even at a young age to be respected as a fellow peer.”
With his family back in the UK full time from the age of 15, few chances came for a teenage Salt at Surrey, where he didn’t play a single game at age-group level after he had been recommended by Medlycott. But a move to Sussex, where he signed his first professional contract at 18, followed.
“I suppose I’m surprised he didn’t get a look in at Surrey but they’ve produced so many good players,” Medlycott says. “It’s a decision that needs to be made and people need to play. In Phil’s case, Sussex opened the doorway for him.”
After making his first-team debut in 2015, Salt flourished, particularly under the guidance of former Australia fast bowler Jason Gillespie, who was his coach for three years on the south coast.
A move to Lancashire came in 2022, a year after he had made his England debut.
“He was a player of high potential who was doing well and it seemed a good fit at the right time,” Glen Chapple, the coach who signed him for Lancashire, tells i.
“He’s a modern cricketer, a very talented, powerful ball striker and really committed. When he first started he was maybe seen as being too aggressive.
“But the way the game has moved forward it looks like he knew what he was doing all along because the game’s crying out for players like him. I think over the last few years he’s developed his game to the level where he can play against anybody now.”
Salt’s performances in recent months for England and Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL are as sure a sign as any he has taken his game to a new level.
“He was always a hard hitter,” says Chapple. “But he seems to have developed his power hitting to a degree where he is now hitting big sixes. He used to hit the ball very hard and low, still hitting sixes. Now he’s hitting it 15 rows back.
“I saw him play the other day and his off-side game was really impressive. People think he’s a legside player but he’s playing through the off-side equally as well. A lot of players have to prioritise one side but he seems to now be able to open up both sides which makes him very difficult to bowl at.”
Medlycott agrees. “I think he’s moved his game onto another level now by being able to strike the ball through the off-side so much better than when he first started,” he says.
“I think that’s a huge evolution and has been the making of him, it really has. I think he now doesn’t strike the ball as flat as he used to. He had quite a slightly closed face so when he hit the ball it went flatter rather than adding a little bit of height and distance. I think that’s been a huge bonus for him.”
And Chapple doesn’t think bulking up in the gym has been the key to that increased power.
“I don’t necessarily think it’s physical, it’s how he hits the ball,” he says.
“It’s more experience and decision-making, picking the right ball to go aerial with. I’ve seen him hit a number of shots this IPL where balls he would have hit for one-bounce fours or just cleared the rope with a flat six, he’s now hitting high into the stands. I don’t think it’s as much a physical development as much as where he’s accessing the ball.”
Salt’s recent form has also seen him mentioned as a possible wicketkeeper for England’s Test team this summer.
“There’s probably six or seven who think they could take the gloves for England and bat at six,” Chapple says. “He’s definitely one of them in my opinion.”
Salt has always worked hard on his keeping and Medlycott says: “He’s been so impressive in the last two years with the gloves. I’ve absolutely no doubt he’d be able to perform and fit into the environment. If he can get a good World Cup in I think that will potentially open the door.”
Salt has come a long way from the kid who picked up the wrong takeaway all those years ago. Don’t back against him delivering for England at the World Cup.
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