Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha lamented the decision to allocate a reserved day for the India-Pakistan match only, the 54-year-old expressed while speaking at the pre-match press conference of the Asia Cup Super Four encounter between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka on Saturday in Colombo.

Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha acknowledged the arduous challenge of facing the Afghanistan bowling attack but pointed out that the familiarity of facing the Afghans in recent encounters will help the Tigers' cause.

Despite not being completely out of runs, the manner of Liton's dismissals over the past few months have been a concern for the Bangladesh team management. With major tournaments such as Asia Cup and the World Cup to come, Liton's form is a big area of dependency for the Tigers as a strong start from the top-order is required when wickets favour batters.

The Nidahas Trophy, where Bangladesh beat Sri Lanka in a tempestuous encounter to move into the final, has been a talking point in South Asian cricket since 2018, and Hathurusingha was the coach of the Lankan team at that time, having just defected from the Bangladesh dugout. But the coach simply brushed aside any notion of any lingering rivalry

Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan expects his team to do well in the upcoming Asia Cup. However, the all-rounder said he would be taking every match separately rather than putting any specific target for his team to achieve in the tournament.

A backup is never just a backup. The training of the nine cricketers at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium, who have been kept as backup options with the upcoming World Cup in mind, is well-integrated to the needs of the national team, as per head coach Chandika Hathurusingha's instructions.

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) today held a discussion with BCB chief match referee Roquibul Hasan to ask for an explanation regarding his criticism of the board’s recruitment of head coach Chandika Hathurusingha in a recent interview. However, comments made in another interview which was released this evening is now stirring things up.

Bangladesh's Asia Cup squad was named yesterday with youngster Tanzid Hasan Tamim the only new face. There were some interesting picks by Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) and, by and large, the selection was based on forward-thinking, done after discussions with both the team management, head coach Chandika Hathurusingha, and newly appointed ODI skipper Shakib Al Hasan.

Bangladesh team continued their training camp yesterday with the players going through the gears, doing endurance training along with some fielding exercises. There was even a specific drill for spinners that caught the media's interest.

It will be interesting to see whether the criteria of the team-selection would eventually boil down to personal preferences, team combination or the need of experience. The selectors are thus in for an anxious ride in prioritising their agendas

Bangladesh national cricket team will begin their Asia Cup preparations with the official training camp expected to start in the second week of August.

Hathurusingha left Bangladesh recently after the series against Afghanistan and is expected to be back for the start of training camp by July 30. But his vacation in Australia couldn’t have started any worse.

Following a lot of drama both on and off the field since Tamim Iqbal's retirement saga, Bangladesh's seven-wicket victory in the final ODI against Afghanistan came as a relief to the Tigers' camp, especially considering how the Tigers conceded the three-match series with successive losses in the first two matches in Chattogram.

The rough way in which even stalwarts like Tamim and Shakib are handled speaks volumes about the overall mistreatment of players by the BCB.

The Bangladesh team appeared to have put in the hard yards over the past two days and thus had a rather light training session in Chattogram yesterday on the eve of the first ODI against Afghanistan today. The majority of the work went on behind closed-door sessions, with only Shakib Al Hasan, making a return following an injury, doing specific work in the nets with head coach Chandika Hathurusingha.

In the second and final part of an exclusive interview with The Daily Star's Mazhar Uddin, Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha talked about the thought process behind approaching any particular opponent, the Tigers' chances in the upcoming major events and the change in mentality of the team as a unit among other topics. The excerpts of the interview are as follows:

Chandika Hathurusingha looks calmer and more composed and appears to have been doing his homework since starting his second stint as Bangladesh's head coach. The Sri Lankan has come with the purpose of transforming Bangladesh cricket with short and long-term planning. The 54-year-old spoke with The Daily Star's Mazhar Uddin about his plans in restructuring the grassroots level, strengthening the pipeline and a few other topics in the first of a two-part interview. The excerpts are below:

It was a rare sight to see Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha, known as a hard taskmaster, heap praises on his side as the Tigers crushed Afghanistan by a record 546 runs in the one-off Test at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur on Saturday.

Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha credited his team for overcoming the mental barrier that the Tigers have often faced when showing the willingness to play on tracks that are green and offer help for the pacers at home.

Gamini first arrived as head curator in 2010 and it is widely considered that his understanding with current head coach Chandika Hathurusingha was key to the Tigers' success on home soil in Hathurusingha's previous tenure as the Tigers' head coach, a period that saw them beat top Test nations such as England in 2016 and Australia in 2017 at home at Mirpu