Now goes Richards
Bangladesh fielding coach Corey Richards became the high-profile member to part ways with the Bangladesh Cricket Board in a month's time. The Australian, who was hired in February last year, also performed the role of an interim batting coach for the team.
He submitted his resignation letter yesterday and the BCB accepted it.
Richards's departure, following the resignations of David Dwyer and Shane Jurgensen, means that the national team's support staff has now only two members -- physio Vibhav Singh and computer analyst Nasir Ahmed. The other member to resign was Richard McInnes who served as the head of BCB's National Cricket Academy.
BCB had made it public that it was in the hunt for a number of new specialised coaches and the mood in the camp was as such that Richards's exit was just a matter of time.
According to BCB's cricket operations committee chairman Akram Khan, it was a mutual decision with both the board and the Australian agreeing to part ways.
"Corey [Richards] has been an integral member of the Bangladesh team management. However, both the coach and the board have different plans for the future and we have taken our respective decisions for the best interest of the team," said Akram.
The word around Mirpur however was that the board officials had planned to continue without him, and while an official decision was yet to be made, the issue was discussed during the board meeting on Monday.
The Australian was initially eyeing the role of the head coach of the Bangladesh team after Jurgensen resigned. However, the BCB had other plans and as a result, Richards decided to tender his resignation.
"With regards to cricket, becoming head coach is one of the things that I aspire to do and Shane put my name forward as a recommendation to take over from his role, the BCB obviously preferred to look elsewhere and there are obviously a few specialist coaches they are looking for.
"All in all that's not where I wanted to head to. So it's just best that I step aside and let somebody else come," Richards told The Daily Star.
Richards, who was originally contracted to stay till 2015, has said that the whitewash against New Zealand and the progress of some of the batsmen were some of the positives that he will take along with him.
"Look, I think the most important thing is to develop players. The likes of Mominul Haque, Mushfiqur Rahim and Anamul Haque, they have really sort of developed and blossomed through pure hard work.
"2013 was really successful in Bangladesh and people quickly forget about that, we took great strides in Bangladesh becoming a better cricket team, unfortunately the recent performances overshadowed the good work in the last 18 months. I am really pleased to be a part of some of them," said Richards.
Richards's previous assignment was as a batting coach for Cricket New South Wales for two years. He had also worked as the assistant coach to the Sydney Sixers.
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