The first man from St Kitts to play Test cricket for West Indies talks about his quick rise to the West Indies team and his first series
Nagraj Gollapudi08-Aug-2024Becoming the first player from the island of St Kitts to play for West Indies, meeting King Charles, making a Test debut at Lord’s, getting his first Test cap from Viv Richards, facing his first ball in international cricket from James Anderson. Mikyle Louis has quite the story to tell.When the West Indies contingent were told they were going to be meeting the King of Britain, the talk quickly turned to how one greets a monarch. Louis says his team-mates joked about whether go with a handshake or bow. He himself had other ideas.”In my head I always was planning to give him a fist bump. But the thing is, I don’t know if in the UK that’s a common greeting, like in the Caribbean. So I wasn’t sure if he would be able to respond. So I did ask a question [to the royal staff] if this is something that would be possible. They told me it would be funny, so I just went through with it.”Louis was the second player, after West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite, to greet the king. As Charles spoke about a visit in the past to St Kitts and asked if Louis “specialised” as a batter or bowler, the player raised his clenched left fist, which the King bumped with his right. “My pleasure, my pleasure,” Louis, with his hair braided and tied into a knot resembling a hook, was heard saying, crossing his right hand over his heart.Soon after, Louis’ older brother Jeremiah, taught the king how to execute an elaborate handshake (), which triggered a happy chuckle from the monarch.When Natalia Meish Louis watched the video clip above of her two sons exchanging pleasantries, fist bumps and handshakes with the King of Britain, she burst out laughing. We meet at the West Indies team hotel, the day before the third Test of the England series in Edgbaston. It showed the king in a new light to Natalia. “We realised how the King had stepped out of his comfort zone for a moment and looked like a happy man, and jovial,” she says.The King and I: Louis says hello to King Charles, in bespoke style•Yui Mok/AFP/Getty ImagesHer younger son’s life has taken a dramatic upswing since February this year, when he made his first-class debut for Leeward Islands and finished as the leading run-maker in the West Indies Championship, the Caribbean domestic first-class tournament. He scored three centuries including two in a match against Guyana. The next best batter on the run-scorers’ list, Brathwaite, was 117 runs behind. That form prompted the selectors to pick Louis for the England tour.During our chat two days before the Edgbaston Test, Louis listens attentively, occasionally flashing a smile that reveals his braces. He is happy about the quick upswing in his career, but remembers well that not long ago, things were quite different and he was brooding.”For a long period of my life, I felt like I have been working hard but I have just been stagnant. There were many times when I was laying down on the bed, looking at the roof, wondering like if [I am] doing enough.”Alick Athinaze is one year older than me. Kirk McKenzie, we are the same age. Jayden Seales is one year younger than me. And this is just a few examples. You would look at their progress and they would’ve been performing in regional, international cricket, and you are wondering to yourself: am I working hard enough? Am I training hard enough? Am I giving it my all? And these are the questions that would keep me up at night.”The self-doubt, Natalia says, made Louis want to give up playing. This was around the time he was allowed to train with the Leeward Islands squad before the 2023-24 season but found it hard to summon the motivation to turn up. When she saw him miss practice a couple of days, she confronted him.Louis says his brother Jeremiah (right) has been more like a mentor to him. “He believed in me more than I believed in myself at some points”•Nick Potts/PA Photos/Getty Images”I said, ‘What you doing home?’ He won’t answer. Next day I asked again. He said he felt like he wasn’t wanted here [Leewards Islands]. I said, ‘No, no, no. Failure is not an option. You have to get up. You can’t stay here. You have to go.'” Her voice rises on the last few lines.Eventually Louis did get into the Leewards squad and had the excellent debut season that would catapult him into the West Indies side. “We have to leave that door open and always make sure we continue pushing our children in the right direction,” Natalia says, looking back. “Some people mature later. It is very important.”Louis also credits his success to his brother Jeremiah, the oldest of the four siblings. “He influenced me in many ways,” he says. “While I was in my stagnant phase, he was playing for Leeward Islands or West Indies A or President’s XI games. He would come back and have a conversation, saying, ‘Yo, I bowled to this batsman in the nets. You are not far off, you continue working. Trust me, bro, based on skill you have time to grow.’ Those conversations would give me hope and the self-belief that, okay, I’m good enough.”Louis says Jeremiah, who hurt his hamstring on the eve of the Edgbaston Test, is not just a brother but also a mentor and a good friend. “He believed in me more than I believed in myself during certain periods of my life.”When he was selected finally to play for Leewards in February, Louis says he had four sleepless nights, during which he kept telling himself he wanted to make the opportunity count and not go back to being “stagnant” again.A successful start to his maiden domestic season made him train like he was already selected for West Indies, he says, because he wanted to be prepared if the call came. Unaware that the selectors were looking to pick him for the England trip, he had started preparing for the 2024-25 Super 50, the domestic 50-overs competition, soon after the completion of the four-day tournament. Then, when he was picked for the England tour, things, Louis says, went “crazy” for him overnight.The King and I, Pt 2: Louis meets his role model at Lord’s•Getty ImagesTo honour the first cricketer from the island to play Test cricket, the government in St Kitts and Nevis approved naming the South Stand at Warner Park Cricket Stadium, and a road, after Louis, and allocated him a plot of land. He also received a $10,000 (East Caribbean dollars, about US$3700) grant from the government to help him prepare for the England trip.”All the politicians and the leaders of the country, they started to call me and congratulate me and ask for meetings and those kinds of stuff. A lot of people started to follow me on social media, message me, a lot of phone calls… it happened .”Three days after his fist bump with King Charles, Louis made his Test debut. Lord’s was dressed festively for Anderson’s farewell Test. Louis received his cap from one of the greatest ever to have played cricket: fellow Leeward Islander Viv Richards, who took Louis by the shoulders in fatherly fashion and said, “Big, strong young man, you are going to make your debut now. You want to be great. This is a good time to start.”Louis’ best moment didn’t come with the bat at Lord’s. On the second afternoon he spectacularly ran Shoaib Bashir out, which meant Anderson walked in to bat – for the last time in Tests, as it would turn out. West Indies had originally planned to give him a guard of honour, but most fielders had dashed towards Louis, who had himself rushed to his brother, who was under the Warner stand in his substitute vest.”I was pointing at [Jeremiah] because we generally try to raise each other’s standards,” Louis laughs. “He was the 12th man and on a few occasions [that day], he was telling me: ‘You are not looking energetic, you are not looking active, you are not looking like you are giving it your all, your standards have dropped.'”Louis has a chat with West Indies assistant coach Jimmy Adams ahead of the Edgbaston Test•PA Photos/Getty ImagesLouis patted his right shoulder with his left hand as they celebrated the run-out. “He was telling me that that my shoulder’s weak and I can’t throw the ball to the keeper, so then I was tapping my shoulder to say: ‘This a weak shoulder? I have a bullet arm.'” In the Compton Stand, at the Nursery End, Natalia jumped and danced in delight.The previous day Louis had faced the first ball of his international career. A delivery he had played out in his head, like all batters, several times mentally. “As a human, negative thoughts are going to come in your mind. So leading up to that first ball, they were: don’t let Anderson give you a one ball on debut.”What I always tell myself is: trigger early, make sure you are heading forward, try to play the ball as late as possible. I was just repeating this to myself, then I defended the first ball, the second ball. Third ball I hit for four.”When I hit that four I just relaxed after that.”In their exchanges, Anderson left Louis a little wiser about how the best fast men operate. “In the short space of time I faced him, I could see the experience and the skill that he has. He was bowling from many different areas on the crease. He had different wrist positions for the different balls, and you could just see that he was trying to work me out. This is one of the best fast bowlers ever and I have the honour of playing against him.”Louis made 27 and 14 at Lord’s. West Indies lost the match in just over two days, but in both innings he showed he had the patience to face the new ball and leave the ball alone for the first hour, as the textbook recommends.Mind them feet: “Everybody tells you, ‘Mark Wood [is] fast, don’t get hit, make sure you wear all your protective gear,'” Louis says•Stu Forster/ECB/Getty ImagesThose qualities allowed him to get a start in the second Test too, at Trent Bridge, where he Mark Wood, operating at top pace. Louis was square in the sights for Wood’s first spell, which included a 97.1 mph delivery.He was up for the challenge. “When I was facing him, it was more of me telling myself: ‘Mikyle, be brave. You are well prepared. It’s still a cricket ball. It’s still a cricket game. It’s nothing new.’ So me facing Mark Wood was just more of me being brave as opposed to with Anderson, which was more of a battle of skill, if you understand. Everybody tells you, ‘Mark Wood [is] fast, don’t get hit, make sure you wear all your protective gear.'”Louis says he came prepared for Wood and even Jofra Archer. Back home he had placed the bowling machine closer in the nets. “It was set probably three quarters of the pitch, compared to the normal length. I set it for short balls. It was a on a concrete strip. The speed was about 91mph. It felt really fast.”That allowed him to evade the short balls, get himself into good positions to duck and weave, as opposed to turning his head and getting hit. Louis claps his hands while talking about the theatre and atmosphere Wood generates in front of a full house as he charges in to bowl.What is it like, facing a delivery at 97mph?”It’s quick,” he says. “You don’t have time think about what shot you are going to play. You just have to rely on muscle memory. It was just a matter of being strong mentally and staying brave.”Barring the second innings in Edgbaston, where he batted for 140 minutes, he tended to slip up after batting the first hour in England. Most commonly he was out poking at the ball moving away outside off stump to nick behind. Was it about not being able to switch on and off successfully, which made him drop his concentration?Louis says his being picked for the England tour and playing three Tests made up for his times of self-doubt. “If I had known then that this would be at the end of the tunnel, I would’ve been training, smiling, as opposed to staying up at night”•Nick Potts/PA Photos/Getty ImagesLouis does not believe he repeated his mistakes. “My four innings, I wouldn’t put them down to one problem. I have made different mistakes on the four different occasions. There was an innings, yes, where [Ben] Stokes got me caught behind the second time [Lord’s] – we had the water break and then they changed the ball. I wasn’t switched on then. But the other times, I don’t think it is me lacking concentration.”One of his takeaways from his first Test series has been to make sure he plays the ball as late as possible while sticking to his basic trigger movements. “[Before the England tour] I practised with the intent of looking to get forward, but now I am trying to get that big stride in or play it late. I don’t think I have mastered it yet, it’s something I am working on.”One advice Kraigg shared was, you don’t change your work ethic or your workload because you are doing better. You still work as hard or even harder when you are doing good or when you are doing bad. You keep the same motivation.”On the eve of the Lord’s Test, the captain’s counsel to Louis was: “Don’t just play for West Indies, be the first [of this generation] to score 30 hundreds. You’ve got to think big; don’t think small.”Louis says Brathwaite took him to dinner the second day after West Indies landed in England. “We had a few deep conversations. There were a few times in the first few practice sessions where I was feeling a little frustrated because I was trying to… I want to use the word ‘impress’, I was trying to impress the coaches and the [support] staff so that nobody feels like I don’t deserve to be here, or that I was given a favour by being selected. That was really my focus.”He settled me and told me: just continue doing what you have been doing. You were selected because you are a good cricketer. Him and Jason Holder, there’s no praise high enough to give them – they really settled me in terms of allowing me to just focus on the cricket aspect as opposed to attempting to be what I’m not.”First Test meets final Test: Louis faces James Anderson at Lord’s•Alex Davidson/Getty ImagesLouis came home with 162 runs across six Test innings but not short on learnings.”I just feel proud,” he says. “I feel proud that when I knew it was dark and nothing was happening for me in terms of progress or opportunities, I didn’t give up. If I had known then that this would be at the end of the tunnel, I would’ve been training, smiling, as opposed to staying up at night [thinking] ‘One day if I ever make it…’ and so forth. It’s a proud moment.”West Indies are now playing South Africa in Trinidad in the first of a two-match Test series. Natalia will be back home, managing the family business, but Jerry, Louis’ father, is expected to be at both venues to watch their son.Natalia can’t wait for his maiden Test hundred. “I’m praying, I’m praying,” she says, eyes welling up. “That will be like… heavens for me.”On that first morning at Lord’s when the national anthem was being played, it was like so many different emotions started to flood through. Seeing the camera come across Jeremiah and Mikyle’s faces as being players of West Indies, it was one the best, one of the warmest, feelings that any mother could experience or feel. It was just one of the proudest moments. Tears just started to run down my eyes.”As for Louis himself, he has his goals but he’s not quite willing to reveal them. As we say our goodbyes, he bursts into a chuckle when asked about his ultimate dream, which he says he is “editing”. I push him a a little: give us a hint.”I want to be like Viv Richards,” he says.