'The matter was misrepresented': BCB CEO on Russell Domingo's resignation reports

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), earlier in the week, announced that the newly appointed technical consultant Sridharan Sriram would look after the team in the Asia Cup. The BCB president Nazmul Hassan said that the head coach Russell Domingo had been asked to shift focus to Tests and ODIs. Additionally, team director Khaled Mahmud said that Domingo's philosophy didn't suit the side in T20Is.

After he was relieved of T20I duties, the South African coach opened up on his time with the Bangladesh team, claiming that there is a significant amount of "outside pressure" on the side.

Domingo said that after the T20 World Cup debacle and the home series defeat to Pakistan, the outside pressure had increased and the side's performances dipped.

"I felt we were playing well in T20Is. After that in the 2021 World Cup, the boys could not handle the outside pressure. In the Super 12s, we should have won against West Indies and Sri Lanka and later three leading sides of the world - Australia, England, South Africa - won against us convincingly and after that, we did not have any courage. Later we were beaten by Pakistan at home and from that point, everything changed. The selectors changed the team while a lot of new guys came in while cricketers took a break and there was no continuity and went out of control," said the South African, as quoted by Prothom Alo.

The Bangladesh coach further said that he was told to "scream" at the players, adding that he was asked to be strict towards the cricketers.

"You can ask the cricketers I wanted to have a calm atmosphere in the dressing room and wanted to develop cricketers with clarity but so many people are making noise from close quarters that it was not possible. All the time I was told that you need to scream at them and you have to be strict and that is the way to deal with the cricketer and I am sure earlier coaches were like that but they hardly did anything in T20 because Bangladesh won only one game in T20s and I went with them in one World Cup. Lots of coaches went with them earlier but nothing happened so they wanted to walk in a different way," said Domingo.

Interestingly, BCB's cricket operations chairman Jalal Yunus reacted to Domingo's claims, insisting that he "cannot talk like that against the board," further denying the accusations.

"Who does this and why doesn't he come up with names? How is it possible to scream at a player? He said cricket director and it could be me because he did not mention team director (Khaled Mahmud) and I feel he wanted to say team director," Yunus told Cricbuzz.

"He is still our contracted coach and that is the reason he cannot talk like that against the board or any officials. We will discuss among ourselves because we have seen it today and after discussing with our president and others we will take a decision but we will definitely look into it."

Hours after that, there were reports suggesting that Domingo had already resigned from the post of the team's head coach. However, Domingo dismissed the news, denying his resignation. The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) also denied such reports. Domingo himself confirmed it to The Business Standard. 

The BCB CEO Nizam Uddin Chowdhury told the media on Thursday that the matter was "misrepresented" and Domingo is supposed to submit his plans regarding the ODI and Test teams soon.

"Yes, we have seen [the reports]. I think the matter was misrepresented. I spoke to him this morning itself. He was there in the press meet [with the board president] and he had a discussion with him in detail about the plans regarding the ODI and Test teams. He will submit the plans soon. He will probably tour [the UAE] with the A team when they tour Afghanistan. I am saying it again, the matter was misrepresented," Chowdhury said.

"I repeat, I spoke to him this morning. He is a bit embarrassed by the way the news [or rumours of resignation] circulated. He has requested the media not to present the matter like this. Basically, ours is a relationship between employer and employee. So, to avoid confusion, I have spoken to him in detail. All of it happened because of miscommunication between two parties," the BCB CEO added.

"The main thing is that he hasn't resigned. We are not aware of anything like this," Nizam Uddin Chowdhury reconfirmed.