Bangladesh head coach Phil Simmons urged his players to resist their intention to respond to the critics by posting something on their social media handles.
His comment came in the wake of Naim Sheikh’s respond to the critics after Bangladesh got a hostile reception at the airport following their return to the home from the UAE.
In their long tour in UAE, Bangladesh fared badly in the Asia Cup T20 before sweeping the T20 series against Afghanistan, which used UAE as their home venue. However, the success in T20 series was ruined completely when they were whitewashed in three-match ODI series at the hands of Afghanistan.
Bangladesh had a meek surrender in ODI series as they were unable to bat full 50 overs in any of three ODIs and also got bowled out in less than 30 overs in the last two ODIs.
“Okay. I’m glad you brought it up because, first of all, I don’t agree with players having anything to do with social media,” Simmons said.
“It is your right as a person to be on social media, to say what you want on social media. But as an international player, as a national player for Bangladesh, my players should not be on there,” he added.
He also expressed his disappointment and said he was disgusted over the incident of Jaker Ali Anik, who was racially abused.
“I would say one thing, it is not nice to bring racial tones into anything to do with players. I don’t care where you’re from, the racial part of it against Jaker Ali I am disgusted with. That’s not nice. But I don’t want my players answering anything on social media,” he said.
Simmons also backed Mehidy Hasan Miraz who could only lead Bangladesh to one victory in 10 matches as a captaincy.
“You can’t judge his captaincy on 200 runs at 198 and not chase him. Now, in the field you can judge his captaincy. And I think the captaincy in the field has been good,” said Simmons.
“But winning games depends on your batsmen too. And if your batsmen don’t score the runs that is needed, then you’re going to be in trouble. So if I judge him on the field I think he’s been good.”
