When Chandika Hathurusingha replaced Russell Domingo and returned as Bangladesh head coach for a second term, he insisted that he wanted to give something back to Bangladesh cricket and leave behind a legacy.
“This time I am much more experienced and know how Bangladesh cricket works,” he said. “It’s not only winning games though that’s the major focus but at the same time giving something back and leaving something behind,” Hathurusingha said. In his first press conference, Hathurusingha also touched upon the topic of transition that Bangladesh were about to embark on.
“I think it’s a transitional period going forward in two or three years,” he said.
“Lot of senior players have done really well for Bangladesh cricket and they are probably the legends of Bangladesh Cricket and going to be remembered as a really good generation and then on the other side there are good young players coming through and to be a part of that challenge is always motivating to come back,” he said.
It took a while but on Saturday, the Bangladesh coach sat with the coaching staff of the Bangladesh Tigers, High Performance Unit and Under-19 set-up to get an understanding of the national team’s feeder system in order to have them all align with his vision to take the game forward in the country. The meeting was attended by High Performance unit’s head coach David Hemp, Bangladesh Tigers head coach Jamie Siddons, Under-19 head coach Stuart Law and supporting staff of the respective units while BCB cricket operation chairman Jalal Yunus was also part of the discussion. In fact, BCB’s program head David Moore initiated the move so that different units of the board could sit with the national head coach and discuss their future course of action.
“The meeting today was Chandika [Hathurusingha] addressing all the coaching staff and all the support staff across the Tigers, HP program and obviously Stuart Law from Under-19. It was Chandika showing his sort of philosophy and his sort of vision and what priority was moving forward,” Hemp told Cricbuzz.
“Lot of it was about alignment and unison and making sure everyone on the same page for the betterment of Bangladesh cricket and making sure we are aligned achieving the one goal and that is the development of Bangladesh cricket because that is why we are here for and we are here to develop cricket in Bangladesh and take it as far as we possibly can and basically that was a reminder of that and that’s all. “It’s just communication around how players are performing just so from Chandika’s point of view to get him understanding what players are doing well and how people are progressing and developing and just making sure we are communicating as much as we can around players of interest and players who are standing out and that all.
It is learnt that Hathurusingha made a presentation in the meeting and also urged the coaches to have a look at developing leg spinners and pace-bowling all-rounder as he feels these are the two areas where Bangladesh’s coffers aren’t well stocked.
“He told us to look out for leg spinners and pace bowling all-rounder while he also insisted that if we find cricketers in these two categories and if there is an opportunity we should promote them in domestic cricket,” said a coach attending the meeting.
Another coach added that Hathurusingha also emphasized on the coaching methods and urged them to understand that same coaching philosophy does not apply for every young cricketer.
“Look at different stages a cricketer learns techniques, like what they were taught in Under-17, Under-19, later in High Performance Unit and A team before going into the national team and what he emphasized was the fact that when a cricketer comes from one set-up to another he shouldn’t be feeling that he is totally new to it and it can only be possible if the coaching philosophy is the same in ladder of the development process,” concluded the coach.