Former skipper Mohammad Ashraful has been confirmed as Bangladesh’s new assistant coach, stepping in for the experienced Mohammad Salahuddin only weeks before Ireland arrive for two Tests and three T20Is. The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) announced the move late on Tuesday, framing it as a fresh voice for a squad that has struggled to string results together in 2025.
Ashraful is still best remembered for that audacious hundred against Australia at Cardiff back in 2005, an innings that briefly rewrote Bangladesh’s place in the global conversation. In the years that followed he racked up 3468 ODI runs—the fifth-highest tally for the country—while becoming, at 17 years and 61 days, the youngest Test centurion. He last turned out in top-flight domestic cricket two seasons ago and has since drifted into coaching badges and age-group work.
Salahuddin, who joined Phil Simmons’ back-room staff in November 2024 to oversee the batting unit, departs after a bruising sequence of series defeats. Bangladesh lost T20I contests to UAE, Pakistan and West Indies, slipped up in one-dayers against Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, and were outplayed in Tests by Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. Frustration bubbled into the public domain in July when Salahuddin told reporters, “after coaching for 27-28 years, I am hearing that there are lots of complaints in the team against me. I really would like to know about those complaints. Best if it was given to me in writing.” The quote captured a dressing-room mood that never quite settled.
Ashraful arrives with a few scars of his own. A three-year ban for involvement in Bangladesh Premier League spot-fixing, imposed in 2013, threatened to end his career. The BCB eventually reinstated him, and by most accounts he has leaned into the second chance, picking up mentoring gigs and voicing opinions—sometimes blunt ones—about the national side’s flaky top order. Now he has the brief, and the responsibility, to help sort it out.
How much can change before Ireland land in Dhaka next month? Realistically, not everything. Yet senior players are said to welcome a coach who understands first-hand the unique pressures of batting early for Bangladesh on slow, sometimes spiteful wickets. A former team-mate put it simply: “Ash knows what it feels like when 30 for 3 is staring at you. That empathy matters.”
The BCB has kept the rest of the coaching structure untouched for the moment. Simmons still calls strategy, Rangana Herath continues to run the spin group, and Allan Donald remains in charge of the quicks. For Ashraful, the immediate task is to stitch together confidence, secure a modicum of top-order stability, and perhaps nick a result or two against an Irish side that travels well. That would mark progress—and right now, progress will do.
