Siddons for Prince, Champaka for Ottis

Jamie Siddons and Champaka Ramanayeke are front runners to fill the vacancy in the batting and pace bowling coach position of the Bangladesh National team, said Bangladesh Cricket Board officials.

Ashwell Prince resigned from his position as batting coach on Thursday, whereas Ottis Gibson did not renew his contract after it ended with the Tigers’ New Zealand tour in January.

BCB had been searching for a replacement for Gibson, and Prince’s resignation out of the blue increased their work, but luckily, BCB has two perfect replacements at their disposal.

Siddons, the head coach of the Bangladesh national team from 2007 to 2011, recently came back to the country to take up the role of BCB’s batting consultant.

The board officials told the media that Siddons would be working with the High-Performance team or the proposed shadow national team, ‘Bangla Tigers’, on a need basis.

But following Prince’s resignation, BCB has the perfect opportunity to fit him in the support staff group.

“Jamie Siddons will be the batting coach of the national team. Many of our senior cricketers and BCB directors have said he is a good coach. That’s why we brought him back,” BCB president Nazmul Hassan told on Wednesday.

“After Siddons came in, he (Prince) might have thought that we were looking for his replacement. But he could stay. We could utilise his skills in some other areas,” Nazmul added.

The BCB president also felt that the players will feel the absence of Gibson more than the unavailability of Prince.

“Our bigger loss was letting Gibson go. All the pacers are saying that they were improving under Gibson,” Nazmul said.

Though Gibson, after signing up a new contract with Yorkshire as head coach, said that BCB did not show interest to extend his tenure.

“When I have only 60 more days of my contract, no one talked to me about a contract extension. None from the BCB has contacted me, I gave the CEO a mail but did not get any reply,” he said in January.

BCB officials had previously said they have former cricketers like Chaminda Vaas and Shaun Tait on their radar but the latter has already signed a 12-month contract with Pakistan Cricket Board.

Khaled Mahmud, director at BCB and Team Director of the national team, said on Thursday that they are preferring Champaka for his coaching experiences.

“Champaka has been working in Bangladesh for a long time. All the pacers who came up to the ranks are somehow connected with him. So as an immediate replacement, Champaka is a good option,” he told the media.