Domingo against getting ‘used to playing on bad pitches’

Bangladesh head coach Russell Domingo mentioned that the tailor-made pitches in the past at home has hurt the Tigers' improvement in the long run and the South African also urged to create sporting pitches to enhance performance in the longest format of the game.

Under former head coach Chandika Hathurusingha, the Bangladesh team management opted the strategy to subdue the opponents with rank-turner surfaces, through which Bangladesh went on to register victories over England and Australia for the first time at home.

Bangladesh had lost the second Test by 10 wickets against Sri Lanka to eventually lose the series, however, the Mirpur surface remained sporting for both the batters and bowlers till the fifth and final day of the Test match.

"It might help you in a one-off Test match, but it's not going to help in the long-run development of the Test team," Domingo said in the post-match conference today.

"With all due respect to past Tests, those may have hurt us going forward. When we get on good pitches, and I'm a big advocate of playing on good pitches, we come second. If we feel that we have to doctor pitches, then we have no chance away from home. These two were good pitches," he continued.

"The reason they are not [playing well], is that they are so used to playing on bad pitches. Playing on good pitches will mean better development in the long run. I know everyone wants to win. I know a quick fix is them getting 100, we getting 110. But the team is not going to get better that way. It is a Catch-22 situation."

Despite reeling on 24 for 5, Bangladesh went on to post 365 runs in the first innings, courtesy of Liton Das and Mushfiqur Rahim's hundreds. There was something for the seamers and the spinners with Sri Lankan pacer Asitha Fernando bagging ten wickets in the game while Shakib Al Hasan registered his 19th five-wicket haul with his wily left-arm spin.

According to Domingo, there were no complaints over the pitches in both Chattogram and Dhaka in the two-match Test series.

"It was a very good pitch for batting and bowling. A fast bowler got 10 wickets in the game, Shakib got five wickets. We can't complain about the wicket. These are the types of pitches where your skills improve."