Corey Richards resigns

Bangladesh fielding coach Corey Richards became the fourth 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 today and the BCB accepted it.

Richards’ departure, following the resignations of David Dwyer and Shane Jurgensen, means that the national team’s support staff has only two members – Physio Vibhav Singh and analyst Nasir Ahmed.

BCB had made it public that they were in the hunt for a number of new specialised coaches and the mood in the camp was as such that Richards’s departure seemed imminent.

According to BCB’s cricket operations 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 in 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 yesterday.

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, being 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,” Richards told The Daily Star.

“All in all that’s not where I wanted to head. So it’s just best that I step aside and let somebody else come.”  

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 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' last 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.