We need to back the youngsters: Walsh
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||CF Correspondent||
Bangladesh pace bowling coach Courtney Walsh took a swipe at selection policy on Saturday, as he believes their way of action does not allow the youngsters to blossom.
The legendary West Indian completed two years as the pace-bowling coach of the Tigers apart from acting as head coach on a few occasions. He regretted that the selection policy does not give enough time for youngsters.
He said: “A lot of youngsters are coming through. If they don’t get selected to play, you won’t know what they are. It is one of the things we have to look at a little bit more. We can’t be too afraid to give the youngsters a chance to express themselves a bit more. If they are kept waiting in the wings, they will never get a chance to play.
“The more you play the best chance you will get to learn. You will get more experience by playing in the middle. Sometimes you have to throw these youngsters in the deep to see what they are made of. But if you keep protecting them and say they are not ready, they might never get ready. Sometimes you have to expose talent, you have to give them a chance.”
Walsh lamented that the youngsters are not given enough opportunity and it is one of the major concerns for him as that hindered the possibility of forming a lethal pace unit for the Tigers.
“I don’t think they lack the hunger,” said Walsh. “They haven’t been given that opportunity to play consistently. It is where the difference might come from. Some of the youngsters we have, they need to get a good run. Not just one or two games and then get dropped. You can have good and bad matches
‘’I have seen that as soon as you have a bad game, everyone wants you to be dropped. It is not going to help a youngster. All of us can have a bad game, and when that happens, you need to be given a chance to redeem yourself. It is a case of striking the right balance.”
“Youngsters are keen and want to perform at the highest level. They just need to be given a chance,” he added.
Walsh added that he was also disappointed that Tigers did not manage to get enough exposure in Test cricket that he believed would have helped him as well as his charges in the long run.
“We haven’t had a lot of Test matches, so to speak. But I think there has definitely been some progress. Unfortunately we only get chance to play four-day games when we are on tour,” said the 55-year-old.
“There are some good youngsters coming into the team. I am hoping that before my time is up, we can produce some fast bowlers. Unfortunately in the last tour of the West Indies, they didn’t make as much of an impact as I would have liked,” he concluded.
