After weeks of frantic search, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has finally appointed South African Russell Domingo as the new head coach of the Tigers for two years, reports UNB.
BCB President Nazmul Hasan announced Russell's name as the successor of Steve Rhodes at the BCB Headquarters in Mirpur in the city on Saturday.
"After hectic search for weeks, we've reached a decision that Russell Domingo will be our next coach.
As per the initial contract, he'll coach the Tigers for two years.
The South African coach will join the team on August 21, right before the one-off Test against Afghanistan," Nazmul told the media.
"We took interviews of many candidates after parting our ways with the immediate past coach.
We prepared a shortlist of two coaches and now we've found that Domingo is the coach we are searching for.
He has vast experiences of coaching in South Africa. He started his career as a cricket coach in his early age," he added. As per BCB's findings, Domingo is special to break through the new talents for the senior side.
Since Bangladesh has many young players in their bunch, the new coach will be really effective to prepare them for the next ICC World Cup which is scheduled to be held in India in 2023, believes the BCB.
"Our main two criteria were to see who is available to join the team at the earliest time and who will be working on a full-time basis. Domingo successfully met all these.
So, we had no confusion to award the contract to him. Domingo said he has no bustle in his life except cricket.
He is just looking forward to working with a cricket team for a long time," Nazmul further said.
Domingo's first assignment will be the solitary Test against Afghanistan which is scheduled to be played from September 05 at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, Chattogram.
After that, Bangladesh will play a tri-series T20I also involving Zimbabwe and Afghanistan.
Domingo never played professional cricket. The Port Elizabeth-born coach achieved his coaching qualification when he was just 22.
At the age of 25, he was hired as a youth coach for Eastern Province of South Africa.
During the ICC Under-19 World Cup 2004 Bangladesh, he was appointed as the coach of South Africa U-19 team.
His biggest success came for the domestic cricket club- Warriors franchise.
He led them to clinching domestic one-day and Twenty20 competitions during the 2009-10 season.
He was the coach of Warriors in the Champions League Twenty20 in 2010 and 2011.
After that, he got the job of coaching South Africa A team. In 2013, he got his dream job of coaching South Africa national team after the resignation of Gary Kirsten.
Before the Eid vacation, a few names such as Russell Domingo, Mike Hesson and Paul Farbrac surfaced around the cricketing fraternity of the country as the probable coach of the Tigers.
Even Chandika Hathurusingha was also on the contention. But Domingo was the only candidate who came to Dhaka to face BCB to show his plan for Bangladesh cricket.
Right after interviewing Domingo, BCB expressed their happiness on the plan of Domingo, saying the South African coach could be a good one for Bangladesh.
Earlier, the BCB had parted its ways with Rhodes who was in charge during Bangladesh's World Cup campaign in England and Wales.
Bangladesh returned home ending eighth in the 10-team mega event. They won just three matches in the marquee tournament.
The poor display in the World Cup might have prompted BCB high officials to rethink Rhodes' future with Bangladesh prematurely. Rhodes was expected to continue as the head coach till the T20 World Cup 2020 in Australia.
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