Francis' obituary in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in 1943 states that he was a "groundsman" and that his selection for the tour came about through the "influence" of the captain, Harold Austin.

[1] The Trinidadian writer C. L. R. James, in Beyond a Boundary, wrote of how the non-selection of the Trinidad-born Herman Griffith, who played for Barbados, rankled and "an unknown, a bowler at the Austin nets, had been chosen instead".

[9] Unusually, Francis also contributed significantly with the bat to this victory, making 41 out of a last-wicket partnership of 136 with the opening batsman, George Challenor, whose unbeaten 155 was more than half the West Indians' total of 306.

The tour finished on a high note for him: during the last match at the Scarborough Festival against H. D. G. Leveson-Gower's XI, with the Leveson-Gower side requiring only 28 to win on the third morning, Francis and George John bowled for an hour and 20 minutes and took six wickets between for 19 runs before a seventh wicket partnership hit the runs off.

[11] The review of the 1923 tour in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack's 1924 edition singled Francis out for praise as "an excellent fast bowler of quite an old-fashioned type".

[15] Francis appeared in the other two representative matches for the West Indies, one in Trinidad and the other in British Guiana, with mixed success.

[16] The 1926 Imperial Cricket Conference decided that representative matches between the established Test nations – England, Australia and South Africa – and three new sides from India, the West Indies and New Zealand would henceforward be considered as Test matches, and the 1928 West Indies team was the first to make this transition.

Francis, along with his Barbadian partner Griffith and Learie Constantine, who had toured England in 1923, were the three fast bowlers in the side, but the tour as a whole was a disappointment: "So far from improving upon the form of their predecessors, the team of 1928 fell so much below it that everybody was compelled to realise that the playing of Test Matches between England and West Indies was a mistake," wrote Wisden.

The West Indies' Test team for this series was selected match-by-match by the individual countries' cricket authorities, and Francis played in only one Test, the third match, played at Georgetown, British Guiana; this was the West Indies' first Test victory, and though the batting, led by George Headley with a century in each innings and by Clifford Roach with a double-century in the first innings, took credit in the Wisden report, Francis took six wickets in the match and, with Constantine taking nine, ensured the England side was bowled out twice.

The following winter, Francis, with Griffith and Constantine, formed a three-man fast bowling attack in the first-ever series between the West Indies and Australia, although, as in England in 1928, the team's success was limited.

[23] The West Indies visited England again in 1933 and two trial matches were held in the Caribbean early in the year to select the side.