After a chequered three years with the Bangladesh national cricket team Australian coach Jamie Siddons said he will seek an extension to his contract once his present term expires next year.
Siddons, who completed his three years as head coach of Tigers on Sunday, arrived here in November 2007 and will be in charge until April next year when his home side Australia will visit Bangladesh.
‘If I don’t have an extension before the World Cup then I will already be gone. I think probably I will be seeking an extension before that and not wait until after the World Cup,’ Siddons told New Age in an interview on Monday.
Siddons termed his experience over the past three years ‘incredible’ and predicted that within another three to four years his charges will reach their peak.
‘I think it’s been an unbelievable journey. I started with quite a poor product and in three years’ time we got quite a good product. There are more class players in our team now which we didn’t had earlier and I am happy with the progress,’ he said.
Siddons also praised the players, especially the batsmen, for taking lesson from him and successfully implementing them on the field that has enabled them to win some matches recently against a side ranked far higher than them.
Bangladesh’s batting has improved remarkably during his time and with the emergence of Tamim Iqbal and Sakib al Hasan they have some solidity now both in their top and middle-order.
Tamim was erratic in his shot selection at the start of his career which Siddons successfully managed to get rid of while he also improved the backlift of Sakib making him the batsman he is now.
‘I think having someone to understand what it takes to play successfully at the international level is one of my success,’ he said. ‘I know what a batsman needs to do and I have been training them to do that. I think someone must have the knowledge to implement the training session’s skills in game.
‘We have been working on skills to play short pitch bowling, spin bowling, power hitting and it all started to come together though we still have a long way to go,’ he said.
One of the great mysteries, however, remained Mohammad Ashraful, who has yet to get his consistency and has already lost his place in the squad. Dav Whatmore, the predecessor of Siddons, regretted at the end of his tenure for not being able to bring the best out of him and the story is no different now.
Asked what went wrong with Ashraful, Siddons said the batsman is the best person to answer that.
‘Ash is one of those players who goes really well and then has bad patches not unlike a lot of other players. He had a bad run lately and we need to get him into form. I think it’s little bit technical, little bit mental with Ash,’ he said.
Bangladesh, however, have not been not as successful in Tests as like the one-dayers in the last few years, but Siddons said that should not be counted as a failure. The Tigers won the two Test matches against an under-strength West Indian team, though they had some close matches against South Africa, Sri Lanka and New Zealand.
‘We played really some good Test matches but it’s hard to win over five days against any great cricket team and we haven’t played
any weak teams. We have beaten West Indies, played well against England and New Zealand and we are on the verge of a breakthrough,’ he said.
‘At the moment we are concentrating on one-day cricket. We have played great Test match cricket during the last twelve months, though we have not won but we are on the line,’ he said.
‘Right now we got a great working environment with the assistant coaches finally arriving and we have a really good structure around the players to work with their bowling batting and fielding,’ he said. ‘All credit goes to the Board as at the moment everything is in place now and that is what matters.
‘I think the spin bowlers’ length has improved a lot, in the past we bowled really a way too full. Now we are bowling in a way which is a very difficult length for the batsmen and I hope that continues. Sakib is a super talent and he can get into any side as a bowler,’ said Siddons
‘International cricket is really tough and our players are learning to cope with that, within my three years we have won 4-0 against an ICC full member team and three years down the track we will be competing with top teams on a regular basis,’ he said.
