The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has suspended Chandika Hathurusinghe as the head coach of the men’s national team with immediate effect. The development comes after Bangladesh’s disappointing tour of India where they were whitewashed in the Tests and T20Is by massive margins. Former West Indies cricketer Phil Simmons, who has had coaching stints with Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and West Indies, has been named as the interim head coach with the contract set to run till the 2025 Champions Trophy.
Hathurasinghe’s exit marks an underwhelming end to his brief second stint as Bangladesh coach with the major debacles being the 2023 ODI World Cup and the 2024 T20 World Cup. The former Sri Lankan all-rounder had taken over the reins in January 2023 with a roadmap of moving Bangladesh cricket forward, like he had during his first stint from 2014-17. During that period, the national team made significant progress, particularly in white-ball cricket with impressive showings in the 2017 Champions Trophy, thereby gaining automatic qualification to the 2019 ODI World Cup.
Simmons’ recent stint in the coaching setup was with his own West Indies side whom he helmed from 2019 till the end of the Australian tour this year. His immediate assignment will be the two-match Test series at home against South Africa this month.
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