Halsall on forced leave

Richard Halsall

Bangladesh will tour Sri Lanka for the T20I tri-nation Nidahas Trophy without assistant coach Richard Halsall, informed Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury yesterday.

Halsall, the Tigers' assistant and fielding coach, has been on leave in England since the conclusion of the home series against Sri Lanka and there were rumours that he will not return and join the Bangladesh team.

It was also learned that a few of the senior members of the team were not happy with Halsall, whose contract was extended in 2016 till the 2019 ICC World Cup, and the BCB sent him on a forced leave. Chowdhury however informed that the Englishman is still the Tigers' assistant coach.

"Halsall will not be a part of the team for the upcoming Nidahas Trophy. Currently he is on leave and we are in talks for the upcoming West Indies tour and also a series against Afghanistan later and he is expected to join the side ahead of the West Indies tour," said Chowdhury at the Sher-e-Bangla National stadium in Mirpur yesterday.

"It's not like that, Richard Halsall is still our assistant coach," said Chowdhury when asked whether the board is not willing to continue with the assistant coach. He went on to add: "As you all know we have taken an internal decision over the matter as the Nidahas Trophy is a T20 tournament where our High Performance head Simon Helmot will act as the batting coach," he said.

The BCB CEO also informed that High Performance bowling coach Champaka Ramanayake will act as the bowling coach for the series and added that the team management wanted to keep the squad limited, keeping the short nature of the tournament -- which will kick off on March 6 and conclude on March 18 --  in mind.

Chowdhury meanwhile also informed that the board is all set to appoint another curator Praveen Hingnikar, alongside present BCB chief curator Gamini Silva soon.

"We are in the process of appointing curators. Gamini has been with us for a long time and apart from him we are planning to include one or two curators. In continuation of this we have already had a meeting with one of the curators and if everything goes well he [Hignikar] will be appointed by the BCB soon," Chowdhury added.