Bangladesh appoint McMillan as consultant for Sri Lanka tour

Following the resignation of Neil McKenzie last week, due to personal reasons, Bangladesh Cricket Board have appointed Craig McMillan as the team’s batting consultant for the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka.

Bangladesh are slated to visit Sri Lanka for three Test matches in October-November this year. McMillan will link up with the team directly in Sri Lanka, for its pre-tour camp.

The former New Zealand batsman scored over 8000 international runs in his decade-long international career, across formats. Following his retirement, McMillan served as New Zealand’s batting-cum-fielding coach from 2014 to 2019. His coaching CV further extends to Canterbury, Middlesex and the Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League.

Despite the attempts from BCB to hold on to him, McKenzie decided to head home, desperate for some family time in these testing times. ‘’Yes I’ve resigned, only reason being time away from the family,” McKenzie had told Cricbuzz on Friday. “With Covid, the schedule and doing all formats… the time away from my young family would be too much. I’ve loved being a part of the Tigers and will always have a soft spot for Bangladesh cricket and the great guys I’ve been fortunate to work with.”

Bangladesh will arrive in Sri Lanka early in order to follow quarantine guidelines and to resume training with movements restricted in their own country. The tourists will bring two squads to engage in meaningful training sessions and to play warm-up games.

Sri Lanka Cricket were looking at the possibility of converting one of the Test matches into shorter formats of the game. No final decision has been made.

The return of Bangladesh will see resumption of cricket in the island after several cricket tours were postponed.

England were in Colombo when the pandemic went out of control in the UK and they returned home a week prior to the start of first Test in Galle.

Then South Africa and India were forced to postpone their limited over engagements in Sri Lanka. Bangladesh were scheduled to play in July but the tour was postponed to October.

(cricbuzz)