by Reemus Fernando

Former Sri Lanka national player Naveed Nawaz has been involved in coaching Under-19 national players for more than a decade now. Some of the players who were under him when he was the coach of the Sri Lanka Under-19 team are now competing in the ICC T20 World Cup. In Bangladesh, he had immense success when the team he coached went on to become the Youth World Cup champions at the last edition. Some of the players he coached in that team too have gone on to represent the country at the senior national level. His success with the Bangladesh Under-19 team has earned him accolades and a worthy job extension beyond the upcoming Youth World Cup. However, Nawaz is not with the Bangladesh Under-19 team currently touring Sri Lanka. He is in Australia attending to a family matter but is confident that his charges will be well looked after by his staff during the five-match series starting on Friday.

In an interview with The Island, the former Sri Lanka Under-19 coach compared and contrasted the challenges in the two countries where junior players come from two different structures.

“If you compare the Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi Under-19 systems the player turn out in the Bangladesh Under-19 programme is much less than the Sri Lankan Under-19 programme. Due to the strong school cricket structure in Sri Lanka, there is a good player turnout and a bigger pool of players to select from. In Bangladesh, the numbers are lesser than that. The number of players we pick the Under-19 team from is much less. I would consider it as a disadvantage because sometimes you are restricted to a lesser number of players. Some challengers like the variety of players that you are looking for are really not there. But due to the strong Club Cricket system in Bangladesh and also the Provincial Cricket system in Bangladesh a lot of players at a very early age get exposed to playing First and Second Division cricket. They play a lot of cricket with senior players. That is a great experience. Obviously, that is an advantage when you are playing against an Under-19 team. Nevertheless, any Under-19 system is a difficult area to work with because the continuation of the player pool is not there. At Under-19 level we get new players coming in every two years. It is not that you build a certain squad and you get an opportunity to work with them until they grow and mature into an international cricketer. Every two years you are turning the squad around and get fresh players coming into the squad. You are basically repeating a programme every two years

Asked what impact the Youth World Cup victory by Bangladesh Under-19 had on his coaching career he had this to say. “The Youth World Cup win had a massive impact on me personally. The first thing for me was the reality that the programme that I put across for the two-year period had worked really well and the players have responded well to the programme which was satisfying. The programme had been running for two years. It was not only winning a World Cup (which was satisfying), but also for a team from Bangladesh to do really well in England as well as New Zealand. I think that was the main thing that paved the way for us to move on and win a World Cup in South Africa. It was a massive achievement for an Asian team. It is not like winning a World Cup in the subcontinent. Our players played really well, batted and bowled exceptionally well competing against the best cricketing systems in the world on fast bouncy wickets in South Africa. The World Cup win had a massive impact on my reputation as a coach.”

In comparison to the Sri Lanka Under-19 team who commenced training recently, the Bangladesh Under-19 tram had spent a year together though their training had been inconsistent due to the Covid 19 pandemic. “We started training in October 2020. But training could not continue regularly. Some of our camps got disrupted due to lockdowns and Covid 19 outbreak and various issues due to the pandemic. There were various tours planned by the Bangladesh Cricket Board. But they got cancelled.

 “Training got affected in a massive way. Almost three or four of our camps got disrupted due to the Covid 19 outbreak and lockdowns in Bangladesh. BCB had planned tours to Pakistan and England. Both got cancelled. They could not be rescheduled due to worldwide issues from travel issues to biosecurity issues. Like any other country. It was a big blow,” said Nawaz commenting on the impact the Covid 19 pandemic had on the team’s preparation for the Youth World Cup.