Law, Jaffer to focus on red-ball cricket initially

Stuart Law, who had served as head coach of the Bangladesh national team in 2011-2012, was appointed as under-19 team's head coach, and yesterday he spoke to the media during a press conference.

The Australian said he wanted to make contributions to grassroots cricket to help cricketers' overall growth.

"I have done some jobs as head coach around the world and as head coach of an international team; you don't do a lot of coaching. It's mainly a lot of talking and administration work. This gives me the opportunity to get back and work on the grassroots, an area I believe I can help make a difference. Not just cricketing abilities but help them grow as a young person and as a person. When the opportunity came, it was pretty easy to say yes," Law said on his return, having also served as consultant for the under-19 side in 2016.

The ICC U-19 World Cup will be Law's major priority with the team.

"We have a lot of games before the World Cup, which is 18 months away. We will understand how to play once we understand our squad better. It's about managing expectations of the players too," Law said.

While the focus was on white-ball cricket for the U-19 World Cup, Law believes that improvement in the longer format should be the top priority.

"I think it's critical for the young players' development to play the long format. I believe the best players come from learning how to play that game and from there it's about developing their skill level and mindset to kick on and play the fifty-over format and twenty-over format. I am a traditionalist and love red-ball cricket. Test cricket is the toughest to play and if you don't understand early, it's very difficult to pick up as you go. We're trying to give these players as much opportunity to show what they can in every facet of cricket. If we can play one or two four-day game in every series, that would be awesome for the young fellows," he said.

BCB's game development manager for the U-19 team, Abu Emam Mohammad Kawsar, informed that in every series till June, one four-day game has been included.

Wasim Jaffer, appointed as batting consultant having previously worked here as game development consultant in 2020, said his focus, too, would be on red-ball cricket.

"India have a lot of cricketers playing first-class cricket. Slowly things are happening in Bangladesh cricket as well and the more they play red-ball cricket in different conditions, the more they will improve. For the U-19s, the focus will be on red-ball cricket as well. We will be playing few red-ball matches against other countries but the closer we get to the World Cup, the focus will shift more towards white-ball. However, in the meantime, the focus will be on red-ball cricket," Jaffer said.

Law has worked with the likes of Mehedi Hasan Miraz and Nazmul Hossain Shanto during his stint with the U-19s previously. He wanted to work on building not just good players but personalities.

The U-19 camp under the new coaching staff began in Mirpur yesterday. The team will return to competitive cricket with the tour of Pakistan in November where they will play five one-dayers and one four-day game.