The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has come under fire from Russell Domingo, the nation's Test and One-Day International (ODI) head coach, for producing so much noise that he believes has led to players not being able to think anything on their own.
Recently, Domingo was instructed by the board to concentrate on Test and ODI cricket, and the reins were passed to technical director S Sriram, a former India player who is currently the spin coach of RCB in the IPL and was an assistant coach of Australia.
BCB administrators claimed that Domingo lacked aggression and his attitude did not suit properly in the shortest format.
Bangladesh struggled in the T20Is under the coaching of the 47-year-old, only winning twice in the last 15 games. Earlier this month, the team lost its first series versus Zimbabwe.
However, hitting back at the board Domingo said that everyone is entitled to their opinion but it was ‘disappointing’ that the board did not tell him about it.
“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.”
“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,” Domingo was quoted saying to a leading Bangladeshi Daily, Prothom Alo, on Wednesday (August 24).
SEE ALSO: Ajinkya Rahane named West Zone skipper; Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw & Shardul Thakur also included
Domingo asserted that he thought Bangladesh's players couldn't handle the external pressure.
“I felt we were playing good T20 cricket. After that in 2021, World Cup boys could not handle outside pressure,”
“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 added further.
“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.
“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. A lot of coaches went with them earlier but nothing happened so wanted to walk in a different way,” he said.
(Prothom Alo Inputs)
