Stuart Law back in Bangladesh to make a difference
Stuart Law, the former head coach of Bangladesh national cricket team, is happy to be back in Bangladesh again, this time as the coach of Under-19 team, reports news agency BSS.
Law wants to prepare the young players as next big things of Bangladesh cricket and prepare them reclaim the youth World Cup title.
Bangladesh had won the 2020 ICC Under-19 World Cup. Expectations were high on the team in this year’s U-19 World Cup but they failed to deliver.
Law said he enjoys working at the grassroots level and therefore he is here rather than working with the senior teams.
“I have done some head coaching jobs around the world. You don’t do a lot of coaching when you are a head coach of an international team. It is mainly a lot of talking, administration work etc. This gives me the opportunity to get back to working at the grassroots level, an area where I believe I can help make a difference. Not just someone’s cricketing ability, but also help them grow as a young man,” Law said on Sunday.
Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) game development department have a roadmap on how they can regain the title. Law said, according to the plan they will play a lot for matches.
He said with the World Cup still 18 months away, in the first one year they will focus on both white ball and red ball cricket and in the last six months, they will solely focus on white ball cricket.
“It is nice to sit here and talk about trying to win something, but if you focus on the end result, you skip over the little bricks you need to stack up to get to that stage. At the moment, we have to settle on a squad. We’ve a group of 40 players who arrived here last night. We’ve to whittle it down to a squad of 30, and progress from there,” he said.
“The ICC still haven’t notified us where the tournament is going to be played, it’s possibly will be somewhere in the sub-continent but we don’t know for sure. You have to understand where you are playing to what type of team you want to build. At this stage, it is about getting players together, giving them opportunities, to show us what they have,’ the Australian said.
“The World Cup is 18 months away, the Bangladesh Under-19 team will play a lot of matches. We’ll work out how we want to play once we understand our squad better. We can then fine-tune gameplans, etc. Right now it is an exciting time for 40 young men.
“I was lucky enough to play in the first-ever U-19 World Cup. It can be the beginning of something very special,” he added.
Law was also involved with the Bangladesh U-19 team in 2016. The Bangladesh then finished third but got players like Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Najmul Hossain Shanto who are now playing in the national team.
Law said he is happy to see Miraz, Shanto in the national team and wants to produce more players for the national team from the current crop.
“It is about harnessing the energy, talent and giving them an environment and understanding of how to play the game. It is an exciting time. I worked in the 2016 U-19 setup with Miraz, Shanto etc. It gives me great pleasure now seeing that those boys are playing international cricket,” Law, the former Australian cricketer, remarked.
“It is not about wholly and solely producing international cricketers. I know that’s the developing programme. It’s about developing young men. Every time I bumped into Miraz and Shanto, it is great to see them. They are so proud of telling me about their family life. They are now married. They have come from juniors to become men.”