Bangladesh’s head coach, Chandika Hathurusingha, has accepted responsibility for the team’s dismal performance in the current ICC Cricket World Cup, as the Tigers fell far short of expectations.
Bangladesh, who had come with great expectations of making it to the semifinals for the first time, came up short, winning just one of their seven games.
Bangladesh’s hopes of winning the ICC Champions Trophy were also dashed by their performance, which drastically declined after they defeated Afghanistan in the opening game.
“I take responsibility as well as anyone in the group because we have disappointed the fans and we disappointed ourselves as well. We didn’t play our best cricket but the thing is nothing has changed from the first game to now,” Hathurusingha said here today in Delhi.
Bangladesh will play Sri Lanka at Arun Jaitley Stadium here on Monday in an attempt to maintain their aspirations of winning the Champions Trophy.
After leading Bangladesh into the World Cup quarterfinals during his first term, Hathurusingha saw the other side of the situation during his second stint with the team.
He said that because of their high expectations, Bangladesh had really let them down.
“Only [what] has changed is what’s going through between our ears. Our skills hasn’t gone anywhere. So, I think we put ourselves down by having high expectations. That’s the only thing that we can think of, because as you rightly said, we haven’t played our best cricket or what we were capable of or we played before coming into the World Cup. So, in that sense, it’s we all need to look at mirrors and see what went wrong,” he added.
He also stated that a major factor in the team’s appalling performance was the loss of form of so many players at once.
There were rumors that players with great expectations, such as Najmul Hossain Shanto, Towhid Hridoy, and Tanzid Hasan Tamim, couldn’t handle the strain of competing on a major platform.
“I’m speculating if I say yes or no, I don’t know, to be honest. The only thing you can think of is, it’s high expectation from everyone, because as players, we all wanted to perform in the biggest stage. That’s, as you said, it’s that kind of expectation. It can be pressure, can be that you’re put in a little bit, yeah, trying to do too much,” Hathurusingha said.
Despite winning three matches in the last World Cup, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) considered it a failure and the then head coach Steve Rhodes was forced to step down. There is wide speculation that Hathurusingha will have to face the same fate even though he was contracted until 2024. The BCB would have to compensate huge should they want to sack him.
When asked about his future as Bangladesh coach, Hathurusingha pushed the ball to the BCB’s court by saying: “It’s not up to me. It just have to do decided by the board.”
He also tried to defend himself by saying that he didn’t get enough times ahead of the World Cup to regroup the side.
“You know, I started seven months ago, so I had seven months. And then there are certain things beyond my control happening in between as well – all these things is I don’t think is right forum or time for me to think or discuss. At the moment my focus is this game, how we can win the next game,” he added.
“I’m only 7 months into the job – There’s not much I can do within seven months what I have what I did was just take the team from where the team was and make sure that they were prepared for this actually it’s my work has to start after this, because it’s World Cup is separating to prepare, and then it’s taking the team forward. It is a very different challenge.”
“My biggest challenge at the moment, keep that environment stress-free as possible from every angle for them to help them perform to their best ability.”
Hathurusingha also stood by comment of playing the semifinal.
“It’s not a wrong comment because we all want to do well. We have a high hope and we have the expectation to do well and we thought that we are capable of doing but then we couldn’t achieve so it’s not a wrong comment.”
