Agency :
Bangladesh batting coach Jamie Siddons believes Mominul Haque will return to form under the leadership of Shakib al Hasan, who was reappointed as Test captain ahead of the West Indies series.
Mominul resigned from the captaincy following the home series defeat against Sri Lanka 1-0 and also opted to focus on his deteriorating batting performances.
“I think there are two positives. Shakib’s a very good captain and a very good thinker of the game. He’s also a consistent performer. He’ll do a very good job as captain. Everyone follows him, so he’ll be a great leader,” Siddons told the media on Saturday.
“The other good thing is now Mominul can focus on his batting, he’s been struggling a little bit but now he can focus 100% on his batting. We need him performing. We know he is a good player and we need to get that back. It’d be nice to see him without the weight of captaincy on his shoulders and now he can be a little free-er with his cricket.”
Siddons lauded Shakib and said he is well experienced for the role and players will feel more confident under his captaincy.
“Shakib has done it [captaincy] before. He has got the trust and the players behind him. Not that Mominul did not have [any of these] but the players seem to follow a lot of work Shakib does. So, it will be fantastic to have him back in charge. And Mominul can now go and play his cricket,” added Siddons.
“Well If he’s going to captain, he needs to play. It’s pretty hard to captain if he’s not there. I think he is excited about the prospect of being captain again and I think we’ll see a really good leadership side of Shakib that may have been missing for a little while,” he concluded.
Shakib’s first assignment as Test skipper will be the upcoming tour of the West Indies, which features two Tests, three ODIs and three T20Is. Coincidentally, the first time the all-rounder was put in charge of the Test side was in 2009, also on a tour of the West Indies, after then skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza suffered an injury. Siddons was also the head coach of the Bangladesh side back then.
Shakib continued as Test captain till 2011, leading Bangladesh in a total of nine Tests in his first stint. He was then reappointed for the role in 2017, replacing Mushfiqur Rahim and, interestingly, his first assignment was once again a tour to the West Indies in July 2018.
Bangladesh play their first Test against West Indies on 16 June.
