BCB's Shaun quandary

Shaun Williams

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is in dilemma with the position of Shaun Williams, as the Australian now seems less interested to continue his primary job as national game development manager.
Williams had expressed his desire to BCB's cricket operations committee before leaving the country for the ICC Twenty20 World Championship saying that he would not like to go back to his original position and reiterated his demand after returning from the competition.
The previous board first involved the Australian in a coaching job with the Bangladesh A team and then made him the interim national coach for the tour of Sri Lanka which was extended to the national team's recently concluded tour of Africa for which the BCB also paid additional money, a move that raised eyebrows.
BCB now find themselves in a quandary to find Dav Whatmore's successor especially after all three short-listed candidates pulled out their names from the race.
Also, the post of national development coach has remained vacant for the last few months with the departure of Alistair De Winter.
Williams's intentions have been met with a mixed reaction from the board. While some believe that he is trying to take advantage of the situation, others viewed that he is frustrated by the stagnant situation in the development activities.
It was learnt that the authority is not too impressed by his performance as an interim national coach, especially the way he has handled the team in trying conditions in Sri Lanka and South Africa.
"He has enough knowledge about the game which is always handy in development activities but you know, a national coach requires more quality than that," commented an official.
It is however the BCB's development committee who will have the final say on fulfilling Williams' desire.
"Yes, he (Shaun Williams) expressed his desire to continue as a coach. Right now, it would not be wise to say anything more about the issue because we will talk with him tomorrow," said development committee chairman Lt Col M Abdul Latif Khan (retd) yesterday.
The committee's vice-chairman Ishtiaque Ahmed had similar opinions in Williams's position.
"We will discuss with him with an open mind. We have to consider everything before taking a decision like how good he was in his job as a national game development and whether he will be good as a coach," said Ishtiaque Ahmed.
Former game development chairman Khondokar Jamiluddin, who was in chair when Shaun Williams was appointed as a national game development manager, said that the board's wrong policy created this situation.
"I had always raised my voice against the board's policy to give him the coaching job because it seriously hampered our development activities. What we failed to understand was that he was appointed not for his quality as a coach, rather his knowledge about the development work," he explained.
"In development programmes, he was never involved in coaching, rather Richard McInnes did all of that. But I must say that we failed to utilise his huge knowledge about grassroots development of the game. I think he lost his interest in his original job because of the glamour and money associated with the (national) coaching job," said Jamil.
The contract of Shaun Williams, who joined BCB in 2004, will expire next year.