Home ›› 01 Jul 2022 ›› Sport
Bangladesh national team batting coach Jamie Siddons said that due to a smaller physique, it is difficult for Bangladesh batsmen to hit sixes frequently, a skill massively required in the Twenty20 format.
Therefore, Bangladesh must focus on improving the bowling side so that the batsmen don’t have to chase big totals, said the batting coach at St Lucia before leaving the island for Dominica, where the three-match T20I series will start from Saturday (local).
“We don’t have a lot of big players as a nation. Jos Buttler and Glenn Maxwell are six foot two, and Marcus Stoinis is that big. We can’t just overpower other sides. We have to find other ways,” Siddons told the media after a training session at Darren Sammy Stadium in St Lucia.
“We have a good bowling line-up, so we don’t need to put on massive scores. We need to put good scores on the board. Singles are important, but they don’t win T20 matches. More boundaries win more matches,” added Siddons.
Bangladesh just suffered a slamming defeat in the Test series against West Indies, and the two-time World Champions of T20 won’t be an easy opposition at their den despite missing some key players like Andre Russel and Jason Holder.
Out of the three formats, T20 is another one after Test where the Tigers falter. Out of their 125 T20Is so far, Bangladesh have won only 44, and most of the wins came against teams like Zimbabwe and associate nations.
Siddons, who earlier worked as the head coach of the national team, said that his experience of Bangladesh in T20 is not much.
“I have only seen two T20s, so I haven’t seen enough to have opinions about our batting. We have some really good players, so let’s see how these three matches pan out,” he said.
“I have had five training sessions since arriving here. It has all been travel and matches. We need lots of training sessions to develop skills. At the moment we are always preparing to play a game. You can’t tinker while you are playing. It is hard for players to have new techniques or change their technique and play a Test. You need a bit of time to develop those skills,” added the Australian.
To do well in this format, there is no alternative to hitting boundaries, said the batting coach.
“More boundaries win more matches. We have to focus on power-hitting, good cricket; hitting fours is almost as good as hitting lots of sixes. We need to hit more fours, fewer dot balls, and throw in a few sixes,” pointed out Siddons.
The batting coach is eying to develop a squad that can perform well in the upcoming Asia Cup and the T20 World Cup.
“We have quite a few new players in this team. We are trying to develop a side that wins or does well in the T20 World Cup and Asia Cup. We will get enough time to get the right philosophy for the World Cup,” he said.
Statistically, West Indies are Bangladesh’s second-favourite T20I opponents as they have five wins against them, including a victory in the first-ever T20 World Cup.
Bangladesh also won the T20 series on their last trip in 2018, where the matches took place in Florida, USA.
This time West Indies is fielding a comparatively young side led by Nicholas Pooran, without stalwarts like Russel, Daren Bravo, and Chris Gayle. But still, the Caribbeans are a formidable opponent with their experiences from playing franchise T20 tournaments worldwide.
Rather than hoping for results, Siddons is focusing on how the players do in such conditions.
“We need to prepare our players a little bit better for bouncy wickets. Our wickets at home are not conducive to preparing them for here. It was hard work for our batsmen here in the Tests. It spun a lot in South Africa. We are getting found out by extreme wickets at times,” said the batting coach.
