Dave Whatmore
Syed Nazmul Alam, London, UK
Much was said about Dave Whatmore over the last few days after he expressed his willingness to coach the Indian team. Along with the newspapers, a few former cricketers from Bangladesh were quite charged on Whatmore who would undoubtedly go down in the history of Bangladesh cricket as someone who brought about a big change. These newspapers and the former cricketers had always praised Dave for his extraordinary capability of bringing about positive results, getting the boys up whenever their spirit was down, and eventually guiding the cricketers towards the right track. No one ever had a single complaint against Whatmore until he was heard to have said that he would be delighted if he were made the Indian coach. Whatmore took over the charge of our team immediately after it came from a poor performance in the 2003 World Cup. Before him many other coaches had been tried by the BCB, but they all failed, except Gordon Greenidge, who had great contribution to Bangladesh's winning the ICC Champions Trophy. Coming back to Dave, our cricket was in bad shape when Whatmore took over. On his arrival here in Bangladesh, the first thing that Whatmore said was that he would transform our cricket team from one of the cricketing minnows to a giant killer, provided he was allowed to work freely. He has lived up to his promise. He has been criticised for his decisions like not batting after winning the toss. But I'm not sure what difference that would make, given the poor performance of our batsmen. Actually, it's very easy to criticize someone else's decision. If I've not misheard, in an interview to a TV channel, an ex-cricketer of Bangladesh, who I used to regard very highly, openly put the blame on the outgoing coach for Bangladesh's batting debacle in a match against India. He might have forgotten that it was Dave Whatmore who helped Bangladesh cricket reach its present stage. I should take this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude to Dave Whatmore.
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