Former South African batsman Ashwell Prince has been appointed as Bangladesh’s full-time batting coach until ICC T20 WC 2022 to be played in Australia.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) on Thursday (August 12) announced the appointment of Prince as their full-time batting coach after having been impressed with his job in the same role during their recent series against Zimbabwe in July 2021.
However, he was not part of Bangladesh’s recent historic 4-1 T20I series win over Australia at home but will be available from the upcoming five-match T20I series against New Zealand, starting on Sept 1.
The 44-year-old, who represented South Africa in 119 international games across all three formats, has resigned as head coach of South Africa's Western Province, Boland, and South Western Districts, to take up a permanent role with the Bangladesh cricket team.
Prince said in a statement: “I thoroughly enjoyed my experience with the Bangladesh National team during what was obviously a very successful tour for the team in Zimbabwe. The level of cricket played by both Bangladesh and Zimbabwe was of a really high standard.”
The coach continued, “On the last night of the tour the entire team had assembled around an African bonfire to do a debrief on what was obviously a very satisfying tour of Zimbabwe, but also to plan for the approaching tour against Australia.
I don’t think the results (against Australia) came as a surprise to anyone in the Bangladesh camp. When I was subsequently offered the chance to join the team on a full-time basis, it was a no-brainer.”
He concluded, “I believe Head Coach Russell Domingo has created a really positive team environment with an extremely talented squad, a vastly experienced backroom staff that I really enjoyed working with. So I think it is fair to say, I really look forward to joining up with the team again.”
(With AFP Inputs)
