Bangladesh have talent, need self-belief - Law

Stuart Law, the new Bangladesh coach, has said his aim is to build a self-reliant Bangladesh team that can help each other and rely less on the natural talent of individuals. Having arrived in Dhaka on Monday morning, along with new fielding coach Jason Swift, Law told his first press conference as coach that he needed to work with the team before identifying areas where they needed improvement, but felt a little more professionalism would help.

"I've seen Bangladesh play a lot of good cricket. They're very talented," Law said at the Shere Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka on Monday. "The captain [Shakib Al Hasan] was rated No. 1 all-rounder in the world not long ago; Tamim Iqbal is a destructive top-order batsman. Maybe there are areas away from cricket in which they need to improve. A little bit more professionalism maybe, but I haven't seen them up close to see what makes them tick.

"Maybe it's not about natural talent but a bit more mental toughness, self-belief. That's what I can impart. The bigger you are the harder you fall. We are a minnow which is a good thing because we go into every game as an underdog and there's nothing to lose."

Law has played against both Shakib and Tamim; he represented Lancashire and MCC against Bangladesh A in 2008. He will start work on July 20 when Bangladesh play a practice game in Mirpur and his first assignment will be to prepare the team for their tour of Zimbabwe which starts with a tour game on July 30. He said his approach to the side would be to initially observe and see what made the players tick.

"I like to observe rather than sit down and tell them what to do. I have a 9-year-old son and he doesn't like to do what I tell him either. I've learnt over my time, the more the players want to do it, the better for the team. It's not about what I want, it's about what they want. The tour of Zimbabwe should be a good one, in conditions that we are comfortable playing on. It should be a good way to get into the role.

"In the first weeks, the job will be to put names to faces. Once we get into that, we want to make Bangladesh cricket team a team they think they should be. It's about what they expect from themselves. If they believe they should be the seventh, sixth or fifth best team in the world, that's where we should aim at first. If they all perform at their optimum, the sky could be the limit for this team."

Law played the role of interim coach for Sri Lanka on their recent tour of England but chose to join Bangladesh after the ODI series ended as they were offering him a permanent job. "Sri Lanka were not in a position to offer an extension in the contract. So there was no job on the table from them. Bangladesh had contacted my management company to seek the possibility of joining. Having been here and knowing the passion that Bangladesh people have for cricket and their team, I saw it as a great opportunity for me while I'm still young as a coach.

"Hopefully I can impart the knowledge that I've gathered from my 31 seasons of cricket and make the players as good as they can be."