Australian Shane Jurgensen has been appointed as the new bowling coach of the Bangladesh cricket team on the recommendation of head coach Stuart Law, the Bangladesh Cricket Board said on Friday.
The 35-year-old Queenslander, a former bowling coach of New Zealand, is expected to arrive in Dhaka on Sunday, two days before the Tigers face West Indies in a Twenty20 Intentional at the Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium. The position of bowling coach has been vacant since the contract of Englishman Ian Pont expired in April and the board has been struggling since then to the fill the vacancy.
The board wanted to bring in former Indian pace bowler Venkatesh Prasad but had to back out after he asked for a huge compensation.
Stuart Barnes, the fast bowling consultant of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club,
was also under BCB consideration, but Law strongly recommended Jurgensen for the job during a meeting with BCB president AHM Mustafa Kamal last week.
‘Jurgensen is a vastly experienced bowling specialist. He has also had an accomplished cricket career and his input would be extremely important for our cricketers,’ said the BCB chief executive officer, Manzur Ahmed, in a statement.
‘We have agreed on a contract which would see him with the Bangladesh team up to June, 2013,’ added the statement.
A right-arm fast bowler Jurgensen represented three states at first-class cricket – Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia – and holds two special achievements. He is the first cricketer in history to take 10 wickets or more in a Sheffield Shield final and also the first to take a first-class hat-trick at Bellerive Oval.
He had represented Australian Under-19 and Under-17 teams and attended Cricket Australia Centre of Excellence (formerly Cricket Academy) in 1994. He was Tasmanian Player of the Year in the 2001-2002 season.
-With New Age input
