5 reasons why Sourav Ganguly should be the next Bangladesh coach

With the departure of Chandika Haturusingha with just over a year to go for the World Cup in 2019, Bangladesh find themselves in a bit of a quandary. After a terrible outing in South Africa, where they failed to win even one game, it became apparent that a change in direction was needed.

This was not only due to Bangladesh’s performance in Africa, but also the coach’s strained relationship with the senior players of the team. There were reports of a conflict between the Sri Lankan coach Hathurusingha and Mashrafe Mortaza, which led the latter to step down from captaincy in the T20Is.

Players like Shahriar Nafees, meanwhile, have also been overlooked despite being in supreme form in the first-class circuit. It had been reported that Hathurusinghe didn’t watch a single first-class game during his time as the coach of the Bangladesh national team – a shocking revelation, if true.

With the Sri Lankan now away from the team, Bangladesh are looking for a replacement – and they should try their best to lure Sourav Ganguly to the land of the green.

And here are 5 reasons why...

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#1 The Bengali connection

One of the first things every foreign coach has to face when taking charge of the Tigers is the language barrier. While most of the players in the team knows English, some of the younger ones find the language inscrutable.

As a result, there is always a barrier that needs to be overcome with the help of a translator. While translating an instruction works just fine, some of the information is almost always lost in it. This is where the presence of Ganguly would be so useful.

The West Bengal native’s first language is Bangla and will not have any problems in communicating with the players. If anything, his ability to speak Bangla will only make the players keener to listen to him and carry out the tasks he instructs them to do.

Nothing will be lost in translation and, on top of that, the players will not be hesitant to ask him anything because they don’t have to approach a translator first and will go straight to him if they have any queries.

#2 Batting expertise will rub off

Tamim Iqbal will benefit from Ganguly's presence

Sourav Ganguly was labelled as the God of offside due to his insane ability to put almost anything outside off-stump to the boundary. Be it a cover drive or an off-cut, nobody could do it better than Ganguly.

And who can forget those straight sixes on top of the bowler’s head while dancing down the track? Ganguly’s astute leadership (more on that later) often makes people overlook his skills as a batsman. There were only a very few lefties who could time the ball like did.

And it is this very skill as a batsman that could help the batters of the Bangladesh national team. Unlike Haturusinghe, Ganguly was actually a world class batsman and can pass on a trick or two, especially to the likes left-handers like Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes and Shakib al-Hasan.

Soumya Sarkar and Tamim Iqbal, in particular, will benefit a lot from the exposure as the two are explosive batsmen like Ganguly was in his prime.

#3 Astute leadership from an experienced captain

Ganguly was an astute leader

Do I even need to elaborate on this point? For the sake of filling it out, I will. Ganguly took over the Indian cricket team at a time when things were at an all-time low for the nation. Azharuddin’s name was in the mud due to the match-fixing scandals and Sachin Tendulkar proved that the best players are not often the best captains.

So Ganguly was given the reins of a depleted team and he took that very team to the top. From the scandalous period of very late-90s to India reaching the final of the 2003 World Cup, it was all a dream journey for the nation – and it was under the astute leadership of Ganguly.

The West Bengal-native is fearless and never shied away from speaking his mind. He never let anyone get the better of him and always spoke his mind, something that might have gotten him into trouble a few times, but almost always worked in his favour.

Right now, Bangladesh have a fiery leader in Mashrafe Mortaza and adding Ganguly to the fray would only make them better as there would be someone in the dressing room who could share the burden of making the big calls along with the captain.

#4 Revered figure

Dada is loved universally

Sourav Ganguly is a name that commands respect. After all that he has achieved in his glorious career as a cricketer, it is no wonder that the former India captain is still among the most revered figures in the game.

Greg Chappell tried to ruin it for him, but all the Australian did was to isolate himself from the rest of the team. By the time Chappell’s tenure ended, every player in the team was glad to see the back of the Australian.

It speaks volume about the image of Sourav Ganguly. When a player of such a stature joins a team as a coach, the players of that particular team are bound to respect him. Indeed, most of the players in the Bangladesh team adore Ganguly and consider him as their role model.

All of this just points towards one thing: a happy dressing room where the players are fully behind their coach.

#5 Instil winning mentality

Like mentioned earlier, Sourav Ganguly is the image of bravery. Nobody can forget the audacity of the Prince of Calcutta when he removed his shirt and swung it in the air in the final game of the Natwest Series that India won 3-2 and which took place at the holy ground of cricket, the Lord’s.

It was a show of defiance, a tight reply to Andrew Flintoff, who did the same after winning a series against India in India. Can you imagine Sachin or Dravid doing this? No. They are too ‘gentlemanly’ to do something as audacious as this.

And this is why Dada is so special. He knew how to give it back and never let anyone roll over him or Team India. It was after that incident that the other teams started fearing India and refrained from mocking them like Flintoff did.

This is the type of aggression that helps a team to reach new heights. Dada can instil true guts in the team and mould their mentality into a winning one.