Is a short-term role worth it?
On the one hand, there appears to be real progress in Bangladesh's hunt for a new coach. Gary Kirsten, India's 2011 World Cup-winning coach, is as high-profile a name that you can think of and his fact-finding mission through talks with Bangladesh cricket's stakeholders over the past few days seems an encouraging development.
On the other hand, Kirsten left last night after spending barely three days in Dhaka. It has long been known that the high-level South African will not be Bangladesh's coach, but that he would help in the appointment of new coaching staff in a cricketing setup that has been without a head coach since the last man in the job, Chandika Hathurusingha, left the post in November last year.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan said yesterday that Kirsten's role was initially conceptualised as a director of coaches. Hassan had also been promising the arrival of a new coach since the Nidahas Trophy in Sri Lanka in March, when he said that there would be a new head coach by the first week of April. He then said that a new coach will come at the end of that month.
Around noon yesterday, Kirsten gave new hope. "My task is really to find someone who can help the team quickly. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we'll have someone in place to take the team forward," said Kirsten, and added that there is likely to be a coach before the West Indies tour.
That renewed hope, however, lasted just a couple of hours as in the evening Hassan held a press conference of his own and set a new deadline for coach selection of June 15.
"He [Kirsten] will have to give the decision before the 15th, and then we will interview the coaches. There is also the matter of our own preferences."
The BCB, however, have already spent upwards of five months deciding their preferences. The BCB boss also said, as he had before, that they have a shortlist and that Kirsten has his own shortlist. With their shortlist presumably bearing little fruit, however, it may have been thought that they were deferring to Kirsten's judgement.
However, Kirsten's judgement, gleaned from one and a half days of interviews with senior and junior cricketers, board directors, selectors and local coaches, will be subject to the board's judgement. Beyond a new shortlist from Kirsten, it is currently hard to see what advantages his nebulous appointment can hold. Neither Hassan nor Kirsten could say with certainty what role he will have beyond the short term, with Kirsten at one point saying yesterday that he will be involved in 'some capacity' through to the World Cup.
Hassan also said that after talks with Kirsten, there is a strong chance that there may be separate coaches for separate formats. "There is a chance that there will be separate coaches for white and red-ball cricket. Or there could be one head coach and specialist format-specific coaches under him."
If his role is indeed limited to making coaching recommendations in the short term, a role unique so far in Bangladesh cricket, should the BCB adopt Kirsten's suggestions wholesale, and if so, is it worth it or wise to make sweeping changes on such a small investment of time? If not, then it has to be asked whether the appointment is at all worth it. These are some of the questions the BCB will have to answer in this new endeavour, which for the time being has a shaky appearance.
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