#Title

‘Managing swing key in Pakistan’
Before taking the role of High Performance (HP) head coach in May 2023, former Bermuda batter David Hemp worked as the head coach of the Pakistan national women’s team between 2020 and 2022. Earlier this year, the 53-year-old was officially assigned to the Bangladesh men’s national cricket team as their batting coach. Since then, he has worked with the Tigers in several bilateral and global tournaments, including the recently concluded T20 World Cup in the USA and West Indies. Bangladesh’s next international engagement will be in Pakistan, where they will play two Tests, both part of the ICC Test Championship. Given Hemp’s previous experience working in that part of the world, Bangladesh will have high expectations for his insights on the playing conditions there. On Monday, Hemp talked to The Daily Star’s Samsul Arefin Khan over the phone from Australia on several aspects, including the team’s preparation and chances for the series. The excerpts are as follows:
The Daily Star (DS): Bangladesh haven’t played too many Tests in Pakistan over the years. How do you see the team’s overall chances in this series?
David Hemp (DH): I think Pakistan are a strong side… and will be backing themselves to put up a good performance on home soil. It’s not going to be an easy series in terms of conditions and surfaces. But traditionally, what we have seen over the last couple of years is that there have been good batting surfaces. It’s conventional swing to start with and then reverse swing plays an important part in the game. But until we get there and see the conditions, because they might decide to leave grass on the wicket or it might be so much grass that the wicket might be suppressive [for batters], we aren’t going to know about it.
DS: Pitches in Pakistan aren’t like typical sub-continental ones, regularly assisting the pacers while some produce a lot of runs. What will be the biggest challenges for our batters in these types of surfaces?
DH: The key plan is managing conventional swing and then the reverse swing, and how we can assist the players to understand what they might come up against. If you look at the teams that had gone to Pakistan in the last couple of years, it’s about occupying the crease for most of the time… so that you can bowl properly and set fields too. The matches had generally gone into the last day because they were very good for batting. For [taking] wickets, you have to work really hard but if you do get the ball swinging and reverse swinging, you have a really good chance to knock people over.
DS: Our HP team will be heading to Australia for two four-dayers while our A team will go to Pakistan prior to the Test series. Do you think our Test players should prepare with these matches too?
DH: I’m not sure what the selectors are going to do with the individuals… whether they can send them. As you have said, there are a couple of tours… so there’s an opportunity to look at some players there, so that they can get used to the conditions.
DS: Bangladesh had a good start in this cycle of ICC Test Championship, beating New Zealand in their first game but derailed since. How do you see the team’s position in terms of performance in this format?
DH: I think the New Zealand win was a very good one. Apart from Glenn Phillips’ innings in Dhaka, I think we would have won that game as well. And in terms of the Sri Lanka series in March, it was for us to bat long but… we failed to bat over 50 overs in three innings. You obviously have to bat longer than that and it’s something we all should be focused on.