CHATTOGRAM, Jan 18, 2025 (BSS) - Rangpur Riders coach Mickey Aurther who is one of the most respected coaches around the cricket world hailed the positive impact of Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), saying that the tournament is instrumental in unleashing some talented young players.

“I think it is a really good competition. I think this competition has the potential to develop a lot of young cricketers for Bangladesh,” Aurther told  BSS.
“Bangladesh needs to develop world standard players . . . so, BPL is a good platform to find out talented players,” he added.
    
Rangpur Riders was the second BPL team that Aurther is supervised, having previously linked with Dhaka Dynamites in 2015. He found significant improvements in fan engagement and the overall ambience of the matches this time.

“When I came here to coach Dhaka Dynamites, the talent pool was little bit smaller. I saw now lot more players coming up,” Aurther said.

“The franchises have improved a lot since then.

I find the environment much better than it was in 2015."

Aurther also coached three International teams—his own country South Africa, Australia and Pakistan. He was the first non Australian to guide the Australian team. Under his tutelage, Pakistan won the Champions Trophy in 2017 beating archrivals India.

The 56-year old is now engaged in franchise cricket. Under his coaching, Rangpur won the Global Super League (GSL) in West Indies and in BPL too, his team is one of the contenders of the title. He hailed Rangpur Riders management for creating a positive vibe.

“One thing is that my franchise Rangpur in incredibly a good franchise, it’s a franchise that is very professional and very well run,” he said, adding that the standard of BPL is also good.”

“I think there is at least four franchises which can win the trophy. It’s very competitive tournament. But what I do think is that all the franchisees needs to be excellently run and very professional.”

Despite forming formidable team, Rangpur won the BPL trophy for just once. They made an exit to the tournament from the playoffs in the last two seasons. Aurther said it’s the problem that they are trying to fix.

“That’s something that we need to address. We are lucky that we are now seven from seven (eight from eight). We probably know that enough to get us into the playoffs,” he said.

“But we know that we need to be sure with our skill, we need to be sure mentally for those big moments, when we get into final stage of the completion, because in those final stages, we need to be ready for that.”

While Aurther’s cricket brain was praised behind Rangpur’s immense success so far, the coach gave the credit to the players and has special praise for the captain Nurul Hasan Sohan.

“Sohan is fantastic, I think he is wonderful captain, wonder leader, I have been so impressed by him,” Aurther said. “On the field he’s technically been very good, off the field he is very good with the team dynamics. He is an incredibly good wicket-keeper, his wicket-keeping ability Is very good, and to add that his batting is good enough and he will get better and better. As I said I really do believe he is an exceptional leader.”

Aurther, however, revealed his coaching philosophy that he executed in Rangpur Riders too, to make them a force.

“My coaching philosophy revolves around a lot of things. First of all you need to create a positive environment that a player can be as best as he can. You have to give him an environment to become him the best in every way possible. I break it down to three different categories—mentally, physically and technically,” he said.
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“I will use the term ‘roots to grow, wings to fly’.. so roots to grow is all about a technical word, making them technically better and the best they can be . Wings to fly means to express with what they have within their own character,” he added.

“All cricketers are different but they need the freedom to express them. So its all about very very good management, creating a brand that I think is going to be very successful, picking a team and creating  players that fit that brand and  in giving players total clarity in terms of the roll that the team wants you to play within the brand and name.”

He also said he wants to be the taskmaster to make the players better.

“I often said I am not going to be a headmaster, I am not going to be your dad, I am not going to be your best friend and I am not going to be your uncle. I want to be the taskmaster because that makes you better player.”