Four days before the Test: Bangladesh abruptly drop batting coach Ashraful

What happened

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) removed Mohammad Ashraful as the national team's batting coach on Saturday. The former captain had held the role since November 2025. Mohammad Salahuddin, head coach of the high-performance programme, takes over on an interim basis. Ashraful is to be given other duties within the board, still unspecified. The BCB gave no reason.

Local media link the move to poor one-day results: Bangladesh failed to win a match at a tri-nation tournament in the UAE, and against Zimbabwe they were bowled out for 172 chasing 272. Ashraful pointed to his Test record instead, saying the side had won five and drawn one of the eight Tests during his tenure.

The timing is delicate. On 28 October the first of two Tests against the West Indies, both counting towards the World Test Championship, begins at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in Mirpur. The second starts on 5 November in Sylhet. Bangladesh are also without fast bowler Nahid Rana, their most successful Test pacer of the past two years.

The mood on the ground

In Dhaka's sports newsrooms it was mainly the manner of the dismissal that caused a stir. Prothom Alo described how Ashraful was still working with players at the Mirpur academy that morning before an evening press release announced his exit. Ashraful told The Daily Star he only learned of it after the evening prayer.

The Daily Star read the timing as a sign of panic and criticised that Ashraful was paying for white-ball failures even though the Test side had performed well under him. Prothom Alo also suggested he had been held to account for the weak batting.

Ashraful himself was composed: his coaching career had only just begun, he said, and he intended to learn from it and looked ahead with hope. Asked whether he was being made a scapegoat, he declined to comment. The sources reviewed do not document fan reactions – the debate is largely playing out in the media.

Voices from the media