‘I take my hat off to the pacers’

South African fast bowling legend Allan Donald has been heavily credited for his role in Bangladesh's pace revolution during his tenure as the team's pace bowling coach from March 2022 to November 2023. The 57-year-old, who resigned after the ICC World Cup in India, is still a big supporter of the Tigers and keeps in touch with the Bangladesh pacers. On Monday, Donald spoke with The Daily Star's Samsul Arefin Khan over the phone from Johannesburg, where he expressed immense pleasure at seeing his former pupils doing so well in Pakistan. Here are the excerpts:

The Daily Star (DS): The Bangladesh pace unit underwent a massive transformation during your tenure. After seeing them take all 10 wickets in a Test innings for the first time, how do you see their progress as a unit? 

Allan Donald (AD): One of my biggest challenges was to get the fear factor out of the dressing room. What I mean by fear factor is that guys are a little bit fearful of making mistakes. I always knew that every single one of these guys had unbelievable talent, natural talent and great wrists. But for me, the biggest challenge was always going to be to work with them mentally, make them understand what a pack mentality means and how to combat the fear. For me, it was about constantly reminding our group of the process. I think slowly, within a year, we started to get the rewards. I think the biggest thing was for them to trust me, that I'm always with them and not to worry about making mistakes. I think once the acceptance happened, they trusted me. I never talked about mistakes and always gave positive reinforcement. I was giving the guys roles within the group. I made them feel wanted and watching them now in the cricketing scene is a great satisfaction for me.

I met Nahid Rana a couple of years ago in Chattogram where he was part of a young group that came to play against Sri Lanka. I was really excited about watching him. I'm glad he has now got a role. Seeing Hasan Mahmud doing so well, a five-fer today [yesterday], and Nahid with a four-for, it's so, so amazing to see how these guys have stood up now and running with the process. I think that's the most amazing thing.

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DS: Bangladesh now regularly picks more pacers in home and away Tests. How do you see the change?

AD: I think it's all about mindset. Test cricket is brutal and you have a pack of bowlers who have the collective mindset of hunting hard and exerting pressure on every single ball. I still speak to them regularly in their WhatsApp group. We had a good time in the WhatsApp group last night [Sunday]. The belief of this group is now at a stage that I have never seen before. It's just so satisfying to see them run with the process and this is the reward against the very strong Pakistan side. Pakistan is the hardest place in the world to go bowl. But to do that back-to-back in a venue like Rawalpindi, which can be so flat and tough to bowl, I take my hat off to that group.

DS: Hasan Mahmud was a regular in the white-ball setup before transitioning into the Test side, was that intentional?

AD: I remember Russell Domingo's words to me before I met Hasan Mahmud. He said you will be impressed by a young man called Hasan Mahmud. He can play all formats. He even said that he thinks Hasan's Bangladesh's most skillful bowler. He rated him like this back then and I agreed. I asked Hasan, do you want to play Test cricket, and he said yes. For me, the message was always that he's going to prove that he can play all formats. I am so, so pleased that he is in the Test side. It was intentional and it was always planned. I expected that at some point you were going to see them perform like they have in the two-match Test series in Pakistan. It's hard on Khaled Ahmed, who is a regular in Tests. But the bowling group is so strong that you can go and pick three different people on different surfaces.

DS: With so many matches coming up, how crucial will it be to manage the workload of the pacers?

AD: You want to be in a position when you can rotate and you can give guys two Test matches off. I think that's what Australia do so well. Because they have such a conveyor belt of quicks, they can rotate and rest other guys. Workload management is absolutely crucial so you can have three guys fresh for the next series. I think Bangladesh don't have much time before their next series in India.

DS: Where do you see the Bangladesh pace attack in the next five years?

AD: I just want them to keep growing. This would be the biggest achievement in the history of Bangladesh cricket from the pace bowling point of view. You just can take this confidence now and keep building. The learnings and confidence out of that are just superb. I think they should search for more young crops and the pool of young fast bowlers in Bangladesh must continue to get bigger. The more this group grows, the more learnings will be passed on to the youngsters. I think they need to make the pool bigger and find youngsters.