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Bangladesh Cricket Board is mulling a year-long plan for a change of philosophy and approach in the Twenty20 format with Sridharan Sriram despite having a contract with him for just two more months.
BCB President Nazmul Hassan said on Tuesday that they are not preparing the team for the upcoming T20 World Cup but for the next one, which will take place in West Indies and USA in 2024.
Interestingly, Sriram’s contract with the BCB as the technical director will end in November as the contract is till the T20 World Cup. Bangladesh are struggling in T20s, and an unwanted result might not see Sriram in his role after the World Cup. But the former Indian cricketer is not concerned about his contract tenure or an extension.
“I am not here to extend my contract. I am here to do my job to the best of my ability for the time I am contracted. Thinking of an extension is not the right way to operate. I will do my best for Bangladesh. I wear heart and soul for this team,” Sriram said on Wednesday.
Sriram, who worked with the Australian cricket team previously, also told the media that he prefers impact over performance,
“What I am looking for is impact, not performance. Bangladesh will win if seven or eight players make an impact. A 30 or a 25 in 17-18 balls is an impact for me. A small example of this is the way Mosaddek went after Hasaranga in the over after Mahmudullah got out, that’s impact. I think performance is overrated in T20 cricket. A team could still lose if they have performers. But if we have more impact, chances are, we will win more games,” Sriram told the media at SBNCS.
Though the technical consultant has spent very little time with the team and the planned training sessions were spoiled by rain, he has got some ideas about the players he met during this period.
About the inclusion of Liton Das, Yasir Rabbi, and Nurul Hasan, Sriram said, “ Liton is an established cricketer. Nurul has good knowledge of his own game. I am quite eager to see more of Yasir. He has the power that Bangladesh lacks as a T20 team. Somebody who can clear the ropes and find the boundaries. I think Rabbi is a very exciting prospect.”
Sriram has spent a very little stint with the team but after the Asia Cup, his valuation is Bangladesh is failing to win the crunch moments.
“We want to win critical moments in the game. Bangladesh have lost a lot of close T20 games. The overall results would have looked a lot better had we won half of these games. Why are we losing close games is something I am really keen to understand. We need to have critical moment awareness. If we win small moments, we can string those results together. Chances are, we will win close games,” he said at the press conference.
