The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has appointed a new batting coach the day after Ashwell Prince resigned from the position. BCB President Nazmul Hassan Papon said that Jamie Siddons is going to be the next batting coach of the Bangladesh national cricket team. Earlier on Wednesday, Prince resigned due to family reasons despite having a contract until the upcoming T20 World Cup in Australia.
Meanwhile, Siddons came to Dhaka last week. In December, Papon said that although he had signed with Siddons, it was not yet decided whether he would play a role in the High Performance team, Under-19s team, or in the senior team. However, the 57-year-old Australian coach has spent most of his time watching BPL matches since his arrival.
Papon told the media that Jamie Siddons is going to be the batting coach of the national team. It has been heard from senior cricketers and board directors that he has the excellent capability of coaching and that is why he has been brought here.
Siddons was the head coach of Bangladesh from 2007 to 2011. He was first approached in May last year to replace Neil McKenzie as a permanent batting coach. Siddons and Prince were shortlisted, but in the end, South African batting coach Prince was hired.
The BCB is looking to hire a specialist for fast-bowling and fielding, but probably no foreigners will be hired before the Afghanistan series, which is scheduled to commence on February 23. Champaka Ramanayake, the BCB’s fast-bowling consultant for the High-Performance Unit, is likely to work with the senior team in an interim role.
Papon said the departure of Ottis Gibson as Bangladesh’s fast bowling coach has been very costly for them. Gibson’s departure has caused a bigger loss than Prince. All the fast bowlers also said that they were learning a lot from Gibson.