Bangladesh coach claims he was told to 'scream' at team, alleges 'outside presence'; BCB says 'he can't talk like that'

Bangladesh head coach Russell Domingo made some strong claims over his tenure in the side, and BCB has reacted rather furiously.

Earlier this week, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) announced that technical consultant Sridharan Sriram, a former India all-rounder, will assist the team in the tournament. The BCB president Nazmul Hassan said head coach Russell Domingo had been asked to shift focus to Test and ODI cricket. Additionally, BCB's technical director Khaled Mahmud also said that Domingo's philosophy didn't suit the side in the shortest format of the game.

Russell Domingo (PTI)

The South Africa-born coach has now opened up on his time with the Bangladesh team, claiming that there is a significant amount of "outside pressure" on the side.

Domingo said that after the T20 World Cup debacle and the home series loss to Pakistan, the outside pressure had increased and the side's performances took a hit.

"I felt we were playing good T20 cricket. After that in 2021, World Cup boys could not handle outside pressure. In the main stage we should have won against West Indies and Sri Lanka and later three leading sides of the world Australia, England, South Africa won against us convincingly and after that, we did not have any courage and later we were beaten by Pakistan at home and from that point, everything changed. The selectors changed the team while a lot of new guys came in while cricketers took a break and there was not continuity and went out of control," said the South African, as quoted by Cricbuzz.

"In the main stage, we lost two matches while Shakib and Saifuddin got injured and there was a lot of tension going around and when cricketers cannot think on their own these things happen and it comes from coaching and leadership.

"In the last eight to 10 years, cricketers did not get this kind of coaching and they cannot think anything on their own because the board scolds them and the director of coaching scolds them and they were told in every step what they need to do and this is the biggest challenge of Bangladesh cricket because cricketers cannot think anything on their own," Domingo said.

The Bangladesh coach further said that he was told to “scream” at the players, adding that he was asked to be strict towards the cricketers.

"You can ask the cricketers I wanted to have a calm atmosphere in the dressing room and wanted to develop cricketers with clarity but so many people are making noise from close quarters that it was not possible. All the time I was told that you need to scream at them and you have to be strict and that is the way to deal with the cricketer and I am sure earlier coaches were like that but they hardly did anything in T20 because Bangladesh won only one game in T20s and I went with them in one World Cup. Lot of coaches went with them earlier but nothing happened so wanted to walk in a different way," said Domingo.

Interestingly, BCB's cricket operations chairman Jalal Yunus has reacted to Domingo's claims, insisting that he “cannot talk like that against the board,” further denying the accusations.

"Who does this and why doesn't he come up with names. How is it possible to scream at a player? He said cricket director and it could be me because he did not mention team director (Khaled Mahmud) and I feel he wanted to say team director," Yunus told Cricbuzz.

“He is still our contracted coach and that is the reason he cannot talk like that against the board or any officials. We will discuss among ourselves because we have seen it today and after discussing with our president and others we will take a decision but we will definitely look into it.”