BCB appoints Morkel as Bangladesh’s first-ever power hitting coach

Bangladesh Cricket Board has roped in former South Africa all-rounder Albie Morkel as the new power-hitting coach of the Tigers for their forthcoming three-match One-Day International series against South Africa.

This is the first time the BCB has appointed a specialist coach for power hitting, who will work alongside the batting coach Jamie Siddons to help solve Bangladesh’s power hitting woes.

The need for a power hitting coach for Bangladesh became apparent after the shoddy performance of the batters in the 2021 ICC Twenty20 World Cup.

After the disastrous campaign, where Bangladesh lost all of their matches in the Super 12s, the board had promised to appoint a specialist coach for big hitting. It took the board around five months to finally make that appointment.

BCB’s Cricket Operations chief Jalal Yunus confirmed Morkel’s appointment.

‘He [Morkel] is very experienced. Hopefully our batsmen will benefit from his coaching.’

Jalal further informed that Morkel has already started working with the national team, who are currently training at the Gary Kirsten Academy in South Africa ahead of their series against the Proteas.

Morkel will try to teach the Bangladeshi batters the ways of hitting big shots in white-ball cricket, an aspect in which they regularly suffer.

Morkel is the second South African to join the Bangladesh coaching panel in a matter of days. Earlier in the month, South Africa legend Allan Donald was named as the new pace bowling coach of the Tigers. They join fellow South African and the Tigers head coach Russell Domingo.

The national team’s coaching panel has gone through multiple changes in the last two months. In February, former South Africa batsman Ashwell Prince quit as the batting coach and the board named former national team head coach Siddons as his replacement the very next day.

Another South African Ryan Cook was let go from the fielding coach position last year. Former Bangladesh batsman Rajin Saleh was the acting fielding coach in the recently-concluded Afghanistan series. However, the board has roped in Australia’s Shane McDermott as the permanent fielding coach earlier in the month.

Bangladesh will play three ODIs and two Tests in South Africa. The series will begin with the first ODI on March 18. The Bangladesh team is expected to play an intra-squad practice game later today.