Bangladesh’s Test and ODI head coach Russell Domingo took a shot at the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), saying that the organization’s antics hinder the team’s development in the shortest format. After a prolonged slump under Domingo, during which the T20 team went 2-for-13 with one game rained out, BCB decided to replace Domingo with newly recruited T20 technical director Sridharan Sriram till the next ICC T20 World Cup.
BCB technical director Khaled Mahmud publicly stated that they did not agree with Domingo’s mentality in the shortest format, and BCB cricket operations chairman Jalal Yunus stated that Domingo lacked aggression.
It was disheartening that they were sharing their thoughts with others but keeping them from me, but I suppose everyone is entitled to their own opinion. They came and told me about it, but I haven’t read it yet. Domingo was cited as saying to the major Bangladeshi Daily, Prothom Alo, on Wednesday, “I am delighted with what I have done with the T20 team and I am not worried about anything.” To say that I was taken aback by the snub would be a lie; as a coach, you have to be prepared for anything, and if the team is losing, you have no control over its future. As he put it, “I know there are a lot of doubts regarding the team, and considering that it (my departure from T20s) wasn’t wholly unexpected.
Domingo argued that the Bangladesh players were unable to handle the strain after their disastrous performance at the 2016 ICC T20 World Cup and subsequent home series loss to Pakistan. He was no longer in control of the situation. Under Domingo, Bangladesh won only 19 of 46 T20Is, including 4-1 and 3-2 victories over Australia and New Zealand in their respective home stadiums prior to the World Cup. Super 12 round losses followed by series losses to Pakistan, Afghanistan, West Indies, and Zimbabwe negated their victories against New Zealand and Australia on the tailormade wicket at Mirpur.
As a T20 team, I thought we performed admirably. No World Cup youngster would be able to face the rigours of the outer world after that year, 2021. We should have won the main stage matches against West Indies and Sri Lanka, but instead we were beaten by three of the best teams in the world (Australia, England, and South Africa) and then we were humbled by a home loss to Pakistan, which set off a chain reaction that ultimately led to our demise. The South African player said that the team’s lack of cohesion and spiralling out of control were caused by the selectors’ shuffle of players and the influx of fresh faces. “When cricketers cannot think on their own, which comes from coaching and leadership, these things happen; in the main stage, we lost two matches when Shakib and Saifuddin went hurt, and there was a lot of tension going on.
This is the largest difficulty facing Bangladeshi cricket, he claimed, because “cricketers cannot think anything on their own” due to years of being instructed exactly what to do by the board and the director of coaching (Khaled Mahmud).
“I did not want to give them total freedom, but I don’t think you can have big benefit by screaming. If you criticise someone harshly when they make a mistake, you won’t get the best out of them. I didn’t want to do that because cricketers need time to learn from their mistakes and make their own decisions. But they can’t because they’re always being lectured and advised. This doesn’t only come from one source, but rather from all over, and it’s the main reason why you’ll never be able to expand your cricket knowledge on your own. Boys these days are continually looking to others for help since they’ve become so accustomed to getting it themselves.
Cricket players are a good resource. Although I would have liked to cultivate cricketers in an atmosphere of peace and quiet, there were simply too many people talking too loudly in such a little space. I was always told that yelling and being strict was the best way to deal with cricketers, and I’m sure that was the case with the coaches of yesteryear, but it clearly didn’t work in Twenty20, as Bangladesh won only one game the entire World Cup I was there. A large number of coaches went with them at first, but since nothing fruitful came of it, the group decided to try a new approach.
