Streak prioritises grooming pacers

Sport
Heath Streak, Bangladesh’s newly appointed bowling coach, wants to decrease Bangladesh’s dependency on spin by creating a core group of fast bowlers.

MIRPUR — Heath Streak, Bangladesh’s newly appointed bowling coach, wants to decrease Bangladesh’s dependency on spin by creating a core group of fast bowlers.

Streak has said he was keen to embrace the wider role of finding new talent and making them ready for the top-level.

Streak, the former Zimbabwe captain, arrived in Dhaka on Tuesday evening. He will work 450 days during the next two years, and will be in charge of overall bowling which includes the senior side as well as Bangladesh A and the National Cricket Academy.

“I think it is dangerous to set specific targets as you might get it done quickly and become happy,” Streak said in his introductory press conference in Mirpur.

“I would like to identify a group of eight or ten quick bowlers. We know spin bowling has been strong for Bangladesh. We can’t relax and expect for that to continue.

“I have to learn a lot about the bowlers. I have analysed these players as an opponent both as player and coach, but now I have to understand them as individuals and personalities. The mental side of the things is what I want to work on with the guys.”

Streak has asked for patience, at least till the 2015 World Cup to find improvement within the bowlers. Mashrafe Mortaza is the highest Test and one-day international (ODI) wicket-taker among Bangladesh pace bowlers, but his catalogue of injuries has repeatedly kept him out of action since his debut in 2001. But apart from Mashrafe, none of the pace bowlers have more than 67 ODI wickets while in Test cricket, only Mashrafe and Shahadat Hossain have more than 50 wickets.

“I know there are huge expectations, the India series is coming up soon,” Streak said. “But it doesn’t matter who you are, these things take time. Experience doesn’t happen overnight, you cannot go to a shopping mall and buy experience. Hopefully by the World Cup we can see some consistency among the bowlers.”

Youngster Taskin Ahmed recovered from a long injury lay-off after which he was handed an international debut in the World Twenty 20s.

Al-Amin Hossain showed steady improvement under Shane Jurgensen while Robiul Islam gave a glimpse of his ability during the Zimbabwe Test series last year in which he was the man of the series. Rubel Hossain’s ODI hat-trick last year underlined his improvement as an ODI bowler, but his Test record remains poor.

So far this year, eight pace bowlers (including allrounders) have been used by Bangladesh, but none of them have taken more than 15 wickets.

Streak is eager to instill a sense of professionalism among the Bangladesh bowlers.

— Cricinfo