Bangladesh team director, Khaled Mahmud, lauded the efforts of the team's newly appointed T20's technical director Sridharan Sriram for his cricketing philosophy and approach in the dressing room even as Bangladesh lost both their group games and thus, failed to qualify for the ongoing super fours of Asia Cup tournament.
''I always say that different people have different philosophies and perhaps Russell (Domingo) and Sriram's philosophy is totally different. It's too early to make a comment but I am happy with the way he (Sriram) worked in the Asia Cup. I liked his cricketing philosophy and the way he tried to distribute it among the players,'' Mahmud told reporters at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Wednesday.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) board had recently asked head coach Russell Domingo to focus on ODIs and Tests following the team's under-par show in the shortest format in the recent past. Mahmud insisted that they need to give time to Sriram to bring success, but added that he left a long-lasting effect in the dressing room during his stay with the team in UAE that also saw their batsmen play a different brand of cricket against Sri Lanka, putting up a challenging total on the board with a positive approach from the onset.
''This is my personal observation and he came for a very short period so how we can execute it( Sriram's cricketing philosophy) only time can say, because it won't be easy. It will be challenging because we are not performing as a team in this format and to be honest we are at the bottom and cannot go down any further,'' he said.
"We will have a three day camp from September 12 where we will do scenario training and we will break it( training session) into pieces. We will focus on training for specific roles like what will be the target of the opening batters. We might call some new players, I mean not new ones who are proven in the camp that will have 30-31 cricketers while there might be one or two uncapped players in the camp as a surprise. There will be a lot of pace bowlers and it will be wrong to think everyone will be for selection,'' he further added.
''Because Sriram is new and hasn't seen a lot of (local) cricketers and with him guiding the team in T20s, we feel it is important for him to see some new players which was the reason behind organizing such a camp. In the camp, we will focus on the middle-order batting role and also batters' intent, game-plan and their impact against pace. We want the boys to play attacking cricket,'' he noted.
Sriram will arrive in Dhaka on September 11 to take charge of the camp while the Bangladesh team are scheduled to leave for New Zealand later this month to take part in the T20I tri-series involving New Zealand and Pakistan. play. It is understood that the same squad is expected to be announced for the T20 World Cup in Australia next month.
