Bangladesh Appoints Phil Simmons as New Head Coach

The Bangladesh Cricket Board, BCB, have appointed former West Indies all-rounder Phil Simmons as head coach of the national men’s side.

Simmons will arrive in Dhaka on Wednesday to join the Tigers in preparation for their ICC World Test Championship series against South Africa.

The former West Indies all-rounder Simmons, has plenty of international coaching experience. 

He has previously coached Zimbabwe, Ireland, Afghanistan and West Indies.

With the Men in Maroon, Simmons coached the team’s winning campaign at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in 2016.

The BCB statement stated that Simmons had reached an agreement to work with the board until the ICC Champions Trophy competition in Pakistan next year.

Simmons replaced Sri Lanka’s Chandika Hathurusinghe, whose stint as head coach of Bangladesh lasted from January 2023 to the present. 

This was Hathurusinghe’s second term as Bangladesh’s head coach, having previously coached the side from 2014-2017.

While the Tigers failed to light up the recent ICC events [Men’s ODI and T20 World Cups], they had found success in the form of a historic 2-0 Test series win against Pakistan.

However, this was followed by an underwhelming outing in India, where they were whitewashed in both the Test – 2-0  and T20I – 3-0 outings.

Bangladesh’s next assignment, in the WTC, begins on October 21 in Mirpur.

Bangladesh are seventh on the WTC standings.