It will be a teacher coming up against a few of his students when Sri Lanka’s assistant coach Naveed Newaz comes up against his former students Shoriful Islam and Mahmudul Hasan Joy as the Tigers’ series against Sri Lanka nears.
Shoriful and Mahmudul had both won the U-19 World Cup in 2020 with Naveed in charge as head coach. The two cricketers had shown their mettle at the U-19 World Cup and the former Bangladesh U-19 coach was happy to see his students after a long time.
They will be happy to see me, it will be a positive thing,” Naveed said about seeing his students following his return to Bangladesh after taking over as Sri Lanka’s assistant coach.
Naveed set the bar high for his former students. Both Shoriful and Joy have made an impact in international cricket and Naveed had a lot of confidence in their ability.
Naveed had left as Bangladesh U-19’s coach this year but for him Shoriful and Joy would not need his guidance.
“I think they are skillfull enough to handle any situation, despite me being in the other dressing room.
“That does not mean anything to them because they have played and succeeded in international cricket already and in the future, they will have to go to many countries where they have to adapt, adjust and play international cricket,” Naveed pointed to their impact and performances so far in their careers.
“I think those boys are really good players, two of them. One day they are going to be legends of Bangladesh. They are so good. They will be happy to see me of course, I haven’t also seen them for a long time. All in all, that could be more positive than negative”
He had spent some happy years in Bangladesh and felt satisfied that he had been able to put value in his work.
“It is good to be back in my country. I enjoyed four years in Bangladesh. It was really good. I think I was able to give something to Bangladesh, to do justice to the four years. It is good to be back at home,” he said.
Naveed despite his fondness of Bangladesh, will be applying his skill against the Tigers to motivate his own players. He talked about the advantage for his side in terms of knowing the conditions as a few Lankan stars such as Kushal Mendis and Dhananjaya de Silva played in the recently-concluded DPL .
“It is going to be a tough series. It will be a test of the two batting groups. We have a bit of inexperience in our bowling group. Batting is far more superior in both units. They are pretty similar too. Bangladesh has a bit of youth in their bowling group. The two teams are evenly poised, it will be a good series to watch.
“We will always rely on past experiences as a visitor to this country. We have a couple of players who are well tuned to Bangladesh, who played in the Dhaka Premier League, BPL and various types of cricket here. There are some who played the last Test series here as well. We are very optimistic and open-minded about whatever that comes through. We will try to adapt as much as possible to conditions and pitches in Chittagong. It has always produced a lot of runs, so we expect something similar,” he said.
There are nationwide protests in Sri Lanka at the moment amid an economic crisis. Naveed hoped they could take some good news back to the country.
“You can’t see many positives at the moment. It will be very good for us to take some positives back home. We want to keep inspiring the young generation of the country.
“I think it is a great opportunity to put our name in international news. Playing at home, we have a good white-ball team as well. So hopefully the boys will do well and bring some positive news to the country,” he concluded.
