A file photo shows Bangladesh spinner Taijul Islam (R) listening to spin-bowling consultant Daniel Vettori during a training session. — BCB photo

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has pointed out the fallacy in Bangladesh Cricket Board’s policy of overlooking local coaches for overseas options, as they either spent really little time or didn’t accompany the team at all during the last year or so.

The Tigers are presently in Sri Lanka to play a two-Test series which is part of the ICC World Test Championship where they are missing the service of Daniel Vettori, their spin-bowling consultant.

The former New Zealand captain was hired by the BCB on July 2019 to work with the team for 100 days but Vettori could hardly accompany the side as he was unable to leave his country due to travel restrictions.

Vettori receives 3500 USD per day whenever he works with the Bangladesh team.

The Tigers do have their head coach Russell Domingo, pace bowling coach Ottis Gibson, fielding coach Ryan Cook and batting consultant Jon Lewis with them in Sri Lanka.

But all of them joined the team right before the series and are not around when there is no assignment nearby, leaving the players dependent on local coaches to solve their issues in the meantime.

Not only the national team, but other teams are also suffering as many foreign coaches are not showing up in during the pandemic.

Toby Radford, the coach of the High Performance unit, did not come to Bangladesh from the UK during the emerging team’s home series against Ireland Wolves, which took place during February-March, 2021.

Bangladesh women’s cricket team has been without a permanent head coach since the end of ICC World Twenty20 in 2020 as so far the board has found nobody willing to take up the charge.

The BCB was close to hiring Mark Robinson, former coach of the World Cup winning England women’s team, but at the very last moment he opted out and joined county side Warwickshire.

Nazmul Abedin Fahim, former coach and current cricket advisor at BKSP, told New Age that this tendency will only increase as the pandemic period extends.

‘The way the pandemic situation is headed at the moment, I think travel restrictions will be there for a few more years,’ Fahim said on Monday.

‘In general, Bangladesh is not a very popular choice as a work place among the coaches. In this deteriorating Covid situation and the rising death tolls, I don’t think many coaches will be interested to work here,’ he added.

Fahim also pointed out the lack of continuity in training that is caused by the short stints from foreign coaches and felt it could be fixed by appointing more local coaches.

‘The foreign coaches mostly work during the series. In the current situation, they might join the team after arriving straight from abroad. So instead of them, we need local coaches who are available round the year, with whom the players can work between the series,’ he said.

The national team will need a batting consultant soon as their agreement with Lewis will end after the Sri Lanka Tests and the board is also unlikely to extend their contract with Vettori.

Bangladesh has taken local Sohel Ahmed to Sri Lanka as the stand-in spin bowling coach and spinner Taijul Islam had openly said during a recent press conference that he liked working with Sohel and revealed that he hardly got a chance to work with Vettori. 

Bangladesh emerging women’s team recently beat the South Africa emerging women’s team 4-0 in a one-day series, with local coaches at the helm of the helm.

BCB appointed Shahnewaz Shahid as the interim head coach and Faisal Hossain Dickens as assistant coach of the women’s team and the emerging team captain Nigar Sultana, who struck two hundreds in that series,  credited both of them for the team’s performance and for her individual brilliance.

Fahim feels that the time is right to pass the baton to local coaches and appoint them at high-profile positions.

‘Most cricketers come to their local coaches to fix the problems. They are capable enough. They have to be appointed, tasked with a duty. This way their capacity will also grow.’