by Rex Clementine
It is common practice for cricket officials when they attend ICC meetings to ask their colleagues on the sidelines of those meetings for recommendations for names if the post of Head Coach of the national cricket team had become Sede vacante.
It’s a pretty good move too given these officials’ local knowledge on coaches looking after domestic sides. When Tryphon Miranda, the secretary of the board asked his Australian counterpart Bob Merriman in 2005 to suggest a replacement, for John Dyson, the Victorian said it seems. ‘Your Sri Lankan boys play too much football during training. Hire Dean Jones. He’ll make sure they will not see a football for the rest of their lives.’ That Jones was a fellow Victorian was beside the story. Najmul Husain the current head of the Bangladesh Cricket Board knows the art of survival. When he went for an ICC meeting in 2014, he floated the same question to cricket officials with vacancies in the coaching setup in Bangladesh. Najmul was surprised that the Aussies were floating the name of a Sri Lankan, little known internationally. Chandika Hathurusinghe by then was coaching New South Wales and had shaped the careers of a few Australian stars including Steve Smith. Najmul had a chat with Hatu. He wanted complete control of the proceedings, selections, fitness, domestic program and all of it. Bangladesh were in a hopeless position winning nothing internationally and making little progress. So there was no harm in casting the dice.
Soon, Bangladesh under Hatu started playing a totally new brand of cricket. Not quite like the cornered tigers but punching above their weight. Selection was done on merit and not on seniority. One or two superstars in the team were reminded it’s a team game and were even suspended. Hatu ruled Bangladesh cricket with an iron fist like Sarath Fonseka did Sri Lanka Army. Did Hatu like General Fonseka dump a few deserving men and promoted his loyalists to key positions? Of course, he did. Some Anandians after all feel intimidated by a few minute things.
Given his ruthless tenure in Dhaka, that is why it is quite surprising how Niroshan Dickwella and Danushka Gunatilleke were treated with kids’ gloves during his Sri Lankan tenure. He can tell us so many stories but there won’t be any takers. Just follow the simple rule, ‘if you do the crime, you do the time.’ Plus Shakib Al Hasan is a far bigger global superstar than our tattooed neighbours. Hathurusinghe got an extension with Bangladesh in 2016 and the deal was extended till 2019. Then SLC came calling in 2017 with their cricket in dire straits. Initially he wasn’t interested but SLC kept raising the price. Now it was going to be tough to resist as he was going to become the second most expensive coach after Ravi Shastri. His friends in Colombo kept warning him. But at one point in life we all fall for a better way of life.
We have a few things to learn from Hatu when he joined SLC, he didn’t burn bridges with Dhaka. He explained his reasons and quite frankly the Bengalis, friendly people Ike Sri Lankans understood his situation.
Now there’s a coaching vacancy again in their setup. It’s to Hatu they have turned to. It could be an interesting second innings.