A huge undertaking to draw the ‘big picture’

Bangla Tigers is like an incubator for hatching not just cricketers who have surpassed the High Performance level, but also for those struggling for form or requiring preparation for an upcoming series.

The man brought in to look after these programmes and align them so the coaching style is similar through the various grades from HP through to Bangla Tigers and then the national team is David Moore, the BCB's newly-appointed Head of Programmes.

The work he is undertaking has never been done in Bangladesh cricket, which is structuring cricket in a way that coaching through the age-levels and the rest sees players progress in the right direction.

Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, Moore identified three key areas: Bangladesh Tigers, High Performance Unit and coach education programmes.

"My role is to work with the national coach and other coaches and departments like the game development committee to ensure the players we have are prepared when they get their opportunity in first-class and international cricket," the Australian said.

His work will be the biggest factor in building a pipeline for the national team.

He came here following recommendations from head coach Chandika Hathurusingha, who he worked with at New South Wales. If Moore is pooling together all the required information, Hathurusingha would be a key end user of the information that Bangladesh need long term as well.

Why is Hathurusingha important to structuring? Moore believes because of the head coach's specific planning around the needs of the team for various scenarios.

"His [Hathurusingha] preparation is immaculate, very specific. That's why you need your data, your AMS [Athlete Management system], and video footage. Because that allows him to build the picture to get the right guys in and prepare them well for the series," he said.

It is not just about keeping players developing. "We want competition," Moore said.

"Our role is to ensure there is enough depth in every position when someone gets injured, out of form etc. We need to make sure there is more than one person fighting to get into that position."

"The selectors pick the head coach of both Bangla Tigers and HP, plus all the support staff like physios and fitness trainers. They will feed me the information and then I'll pass that information on as required. We don't want to tell people what to do. We want to work with them and educate them on what we think is important."

There is a lot of information to pool together to not only educate coaches to use such information for their own work, but also in feeding the information into the database which will be used for workload management and key information relating to each player.

But it is not all about the stats. "My role is developing relationships with coaches. We are dealing with humans so we have to make sure that players trust them and feel comfortable."

On the players from the programme, he said: "We need to make sure they are good team people. We need to make sure we record information, not just data and stats, so that we draw a bigger picture and so that they aren't forgotten."

In this big undertaking, he cited 'bringing all the systems together' as his biggest challenge. "In Bangladesh, we have got 70 or 80 coaches in the divisions and the regions," he adds.

The biggest cue on what he learned so far? "I know it sounds cliched, but I am more interested in what I can do rather than what I can't do."