“Let’s get to cricket questions,” Bangladesh head coach Phil Simmons had to remind journalists during the pre-series press conference on Wednesday, as discussions in Mirpur kept circling back to the latest upheaval within the Bangladesh Cricket Board.
Since taking charge in May 2024, Simmons has worked under three different BCB presidents. When he joined the national setup, Faruque Ahmed was in charge. Within weeks, Faruque was replaced by Aminul Islam Bulbul.
After serving for 10 months, Bulbul’s committee was dissolved by the National Sports Council on April 7 due to irregularities in the last election. Tamim Iqbal is now serving as chairman of the ad hoc committee.
When asked if the changes surprised him, the 63-year-old responded with a smile. “Nothing in life surprises me anymore. And that’s not just to do with Bangladesh, it’s just life itself. I’ve been through enough to know that things happen on a daily basis. So I’m not surprised with anything.”
Despite the administrative turnover, Simmons made it clear that the team’s preparation has not been affected. “First of all, it doesn’t affect what we do, how we train, and it didn’t affect the camp that we had. It was planned and it was carried out,” he said.
On whether such changes could have a psychological impact on the players, Simmons remained optimistic, suggesting the squad is focused on its preparation.
“If you ask how it affects the players, you’ll have to ask the players because I can’t really see any psychological effect because they did all the work,” he said. “They worked as hard as they usually do, and even harder some of them. So they’re still doing all that’s needed in preparation for this series.”
Since taking over for three, Tamim has interacted with the national team. Simmons described those exchanges as routine. “Yes, we had a chat with him, the staff, and then he came down a couple of days ago during the game to the dressing room and had a chat with us.”
Simmons also hinted that Bangladesh are likely to stick with the opening pair of Tanzid Hasan Tamim and Saif Hassan for the upcoming ODI series against New Zealand.
He said the combination appears settled, with little reason to make changes at the top. Saif, who struggled in the previous series against Pakistan, returned to form with an unbeaten 138 in a practice match on Monday, while Tanzid scored a century in the series decider against Pakistan.
“I think we’ve sort of settled because we’ve had a good partnership in the last series, and then in the warm-up game here, Saif showed that he’s getting back to what we expect him to be. So I think we’re settled for now,” he said.
Meanwhile, Soumya Sarkar, who did not feature in the Pakistan series despite being the highest scorer in the previous series against the West Indies, is expected to remain on the sidelines for at least the first two matches of the New Zealand series.
On Soumya’s chances, Simmons suggested the batter is currently outside the playing XI. “My thoughts are still the same. Soumya is excellent. He played well against West Indies. But we had to make that choice,” he said.
However, Simmons added that Soumya will need to push harder to regain his place, noting his lack of recent game time. “He missed a lot of cricket between the West Indies series, during the BPL and leading up to the BCL one day. So we had to make that choice and unfortunately for him, they did well, so he has to keep pushing to get back there.”
The three-match ODI series between Bangladesh and New Zealand was originally scheduled to begin at 2:00 PM on April 17, 19, and 23. However, due to the war situation in the Gulf region, the BCB decided to conserve energy following a government directive and rescheduled all matches to start at 11:00 AM.
Simmons was asked whether the revised start time would affect preparations, with all matches now set to be played in natural light instead of under floodlights.
He acknowledged that the change could have some impact. “It makes a little bit of a difference. Playing in the day, wickets might grip a little bit more, it might be a little bit slower. But because the practices are at this time, we’re trying to cater to that,” he said.
