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A lack of control of the players and commitment towards the Bangladesh men’s cricket team from the Head Coach Chandika Hathurusingha is a big downside for the Tigers, former captain of the national team ASM Raqibul Hasan has said.
Raqibul said the media made Hathurusingha Bangladesh team’s “headmaster”, though it was not a bad thing, showing a softer side and strategies were key missing elements regarding his attitude towards the players, according to bdnews24.com.
“Had he been a very superlative coach, he would have been coaching Australia, England, South Africa or any [better] team but he’s not.
“But I will not undermine him too much,” he continued, “I think he has lost control at some point. When I say control, I’m not saying he will call all the shots. In cricket, you have to pay respect to the senior players. And you have to take the captain with confidence from day one.”
He added Bangladesh are not a world-class team but their following was huge, counting up to “170 million” people.
Raqibul pointed out that a coach does not control everything all the time. “It is the captain that takes all the decisions. When the match is happening, a captain keeps changing the bowlers, changing the field. So the captain must have a say.”
Referring to the Sri Lanka-born Australian coach’s first tenure with Bangladesh, he said: “He [Hathurusingha] had problems from his first assignment. It started with Mashrafe, he had problems with Shakib, Tamim, also with Mahmudullah. Hathurusingha wanted to throw him out. It’s an open secret.”
Calling the spat with Mahmudullah an “open secret”, he said it was wrong of Hathurusingha to do so. “If you have a plan about the team, it shall stay a secret. Because otherwise it might backfire and send the whole nation after you, criticise you.”
On Hathurusingha’s first tenure with Bangladesh, he said, he stayed back in Australia [after going with the team], and simply resigned.
“Then he went back to Sri Lanka for more money. And there was divine justice. We all know. The Sri Lanka board threw him out and said ‘you are no good, we don't want you’.”
“When in the shake-up, he lost and blamed [Angelo Mathews] who is now playing in the team, he has just been called in. Mathews was captain then. He had said Mathews was responsible. And that [started] a fire in Sri Lanka.
Raqibul went on to say Hathurusingha was “not capable” of coaching international teams like Bangladesh or even Australia, but the High Performance sides, or under-19 squads may benefit both sides.
“So I won’t rate him as a good coach,” he said.