'Psychological safety' the secret behind Bangladesh's recent T20I success, believes Hathurusingha

After a pretty one-sided ODI series in Sylhet, the focus now shifts to Chattogram where Bangladesh and Ireland will lock horns for a three-match T20I series. Bangladesh have never been among the top T20I sides but since the arrival of Chandika Hathurusingha, they have looked a different side altogether. 

Bangladesh beat the world champions England 3-0 in Hathurusingha's first T20I assignment and the series saw Bangladesh batters trying to take the game on and express themselves more. 

Najmul Hossain Shanto, criticised for his low strike-rate of late, showed the other side of his T20 game, playing two good knocks with high strike-rate. Rony Talukdar, back in the side after seven and a half years, gave a couple of quick starts. Towhid Hridoy showed his prowess as a T20 batter as well in that series. 

Hathurusingha believes it has a lot to do with the "psychological safety" he brought around the group.

"I don't think anything has changed. They are the same players with the same skills," he said. Only the environment changed a little bit inside the dressing room and the way we speak and what we talk about. I tried to bring some psychological safety around the group and tell them that whether they do well or fail, they have value to us. They are valuable and we select them because of their skill sets. So, then, I don't think anything has changed [in the players]. I don't know what happened before this but the skills are the same."

Hathurusingha mentioned that his main goal is to create an environment where following the process will be the primary target and the players will not worry too much about the outcome. 

"There's a lot of things behind that, like if you can create an environment where the players can do their best without worrying about outcomes, without worrying about repercussions. Not only coaches, not only selectors even from their peers, if they can be free of trying things and if they fail it's still okay, they are the same players and we trust them."

"I think that's the biggest change. I think it happened recently, and among us also, some of the other coaches also mentioned to me that that's the biggest change. So that's what I was trying to create as well. So I know that if you create an environment like that, they can do their best. I mean if their base is not good enough on some days, we will say that's okay," he said.