What Bangladesh cricket needs is a professional coach with plenty of experience

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is in search of a new coach for their national team. The names doing the rounds include Sourav Ganguly, Waqar Younis and Inzamam-ul-Haq.

Let us look at the above-mentioned names. If the BCB really has made a plan to knock at their doors, then I must say they are making a big mistake. Sourav Ganguly, though a cricketing legend, has no coaching experience. We don’t want our boys to be guinea pigs.

Waqar Younis’s name is surprising. Has the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) plans to snap their ties with Waqar? Even if the mysterious world of Pakistan cricket ends Waqar’s tenure as the team coach, I still feel he should be utilized in some form or the other by Pakistan cricket.

Even if Waqar was available, I think the BCB should not go for him as his approach is much suited for a team like Pakistan than Bangladesh. Both teams are very different from each other. Bangladesh should also not forget that it didn’t have a great experience with Mohsin Kamal and Ali Zia.

While Inzamam was a great player, his name for the role of a coach is a bit of a joke. Late in his career he awkwardly mixed religion and cricket which led to the down fall of Pakistan cricket. Bangladesh does not want to see their national team leaving cricket aside and hear religious lectures in the way the Tableeg and Jaamat are preaching in Bangladesh. Our boys have trust in the Almighty and they don’t need reminders on the field when they should be concentrating on their game.

The Bangladesh cricket team needs someone with plenty of coaching experience. Our boys are more accustomed to professional coaches and not the inexperienced customers. Gone are the days when a Mohinder Amarnath would come to Dhaka to train us and then suddenly leave without telling anyone anything after gifting a disastrous result. Now we are a Test nation and we demand professional coaches.

There is a high demand for more coaches in every sport from grassroots through to the elite. Cricket coaches play a vital role in providing athletes with the skills and knowledge needed to develop, improve and succeed.

It is essential that coaches provide people of all ages the best possible sporting experience, which will maximize their enjoyment and ensure their continued participation and development.

A true professional coach has the perfect training in increasing the confidence levels of his men. He has the perfect guess works and he mixes it with modern technologies to bring the best out of his players. He has the skills to assist in the mental, physical and social development of his men. He has the practical understanding of safe and correct techniques with improved communication skills. Men like Dav Whatmore or a Bob Woolmer had this, and they were not legends of the game.

We can’t deny the fact that Whatmore provided us plenty and Jamie Siddons contributed further to Whatmore’s good work. To further build on that combined good, what Bangladesh cricket needs is a professional coach from Australia or England.

Rather than knocking at the doors of Ganguly, it would be better to knock at the doors of Duncan Fletcher or Tom Moody who are true professionals and has plenty of experience on this ground.

Appointing an ex-star cricketer without any professional coaching experience as the coach of ours boys would only be helpful to hit the headlines in the newspapers, but the results will not be good. When Mohinder Amarnath was appointed as our coach in 1994 he hit the headlines, but his participation with the boys was poor and his work hardly made any visible difference in the boys. In the end we miserably lost the ICC Trophy miserably and Amarnath vanished without telling anyone anything! A young team needed proper guidance which Amarnath failed to provide. Had there been a professional coach, the results might have been much better.

Look at Ian Pont, the bowling coach appointed last year by Bangladesh. How well he had improved Shafiul and Co! Had Lance Klusener been there, then I don’t think he could have improved our bowlers that much. But Pont, a true professional, brought the best out of the Bangladesh bowlers. Sadly, he had to leave. The BCB should have prolonged the contract not only with Pont but also with the fielding coach.

Hope the BCB bosses get it right.

Note: This article has been published in Cricket Country on 19/04/2011 http://www.cricketcountry.com/articles/what-bangladesh-cricket-needs-is-a-professional-coach-with-plenty-of-experience-2001

Thank You

Faisal Caesar