Russell Domingo, Bangladesh’s Test and ODI head coach took a swipe at the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) for making so much noise that he feels it prevents the cricketers from growing in the shortest format. BCB recently excluded Domingo from the T20 set-up after his prolonged lean patch, winning only two matches from the 13 games they played after the ICC T20 World Cup with one being washed away, and opted to give the responsibility to newly-appointed T20 technical director Sridharan Sriramuntil the upcoming World Cup.
BCB technical director Khaled Mahmud publicly said that Domingo’s philosophy did not suit them in the shortest format, while BCB cricket operations chairman Jalal Yunus said that he lacked aggression.
“Everyone has his own opinion and it was disappointing that they were telling it to others but did not tell me anything. I haven’t read it but people came and told me. But I am happy with what I have done with the T20 team and I am not worried about anything,” Domingo was quoted saying to a leading Bangladeshi Daily, Prothom Alo, on Wednesday.
“I won’t say that I was shocked (after being snubbed) but as a coach, you have to be ready for everything and if the team is losing you cannot guarantee your future. I know there are a lot of questions about the team and considering that it (my removal from T20s) wasn’t totally unexpected,” he said.
Domingo insisted that he felt the Bangladesh players could not cope with the outside pressure that was present since the home series loss against Pakistan following the debacle in the last edition of the ICC T20 World Cup. And from that point, everything went out of his hand. Bangladesh won just 19 out of 46 T20Is under Domingo, while achieving 4-1 and 3-2 wins against Australia and New Zealand at home before the global tournament The wins against New Zealand and Australia on the tailormade wicket in Mirpur hardly reaped any benefits in the showpiece event, as they lost all their games in the Super 12 round and soon after, lost their series against Pakistan, Afghanistan, West Indies and Zimbabwe.
“I felt we were playing good T20 cricket. After that in 2021, World Cup boys could not handle outside pressure. In the main stage we should have won against West Indies and Sri Lanka and later three leading sides of the world Australia, England, South Africa won against us convincingly and after that, we did not have any courage and later we were beaten by Pakistan at home and from that point, everything changed. The selectors changed the team while a lot of new guys came in while cricketers took a break and there was not continuity and went out of control,” said the South African.
“In the main stage, we lost two matches while Shakib and Saifuddin got injured and there was a lot of tension going around and when cricketers cannot think on their own these things happen and it comes from coaching and leadership.
“In the last eight to 10 years, cricketers did not get this kind of coaching and they cannot think anything on their own because the board scolds them and the director of coaching (Khaled Mahmud) scolds them and they were told in every step what they need to do and this is the biggest challenge of Bangladesh cricket because cricketers cannot think anything on their own,” he said.
“I did not want to give them total freedom but I don't think you can have big benefit by screaming because when you are making a mistake if you criticize them harshly you cannot get the best out of them and I didn't want to do that (criticize) because cricketers need time to learn from their mistakes and take their own decisions. But they cannot do that because they are always been scolded and given suggestions. This does not come from one place but from everywhere and that is the reason you cannot develop your cricketing knowledge because they cannot think anything on their own. The boys are so used to it that they are always dependent over others,” he said.
“You can ask the cricketers I wanted to have a calm atmosphere in the dressing room and wanted to develop cricketers with clarity but so many people are making noise from close quarters that it was not possible. All the time I was told that you need to scream at them and you have to be strict and that is the way to deal with the cricketer and I am sure earlier coaches were like that but they hardly did anything in T20 because Bangladesh won only one game in T20s and I went with them in one World Cup. Lot of coaches went with them earlier but nothing happened so wanted to walk in a different way,” he said.