Khaled Mahmud set to be Bangladesh's temporary coach

BCB director Khaled Mahmud is "close" to becoming Bangladesh's temporary head coach for the upcoming three ODIs against hosts Sri Lanka, according to his colleague Akram Khan, the chairman of the cricket operations committee.

Mahmud will replace Steve Rhodes who was removed from the head coach's position last week through "mutual consent" after the BCB reviewed his performance following their World Cup campaign.

"Khaled Mahmud is close to becoming the senior team's temporary coach. The board will confirm the decision in a couple of days," Akram said but didn't comment on whether Mahmud continues to be a board director at the same time.

This is the second time Mahmud will become a director-coach after he took over in a temporary role (called the team's technical director) following Chandika Hathurusingha's resignation in October 2017. Mahmud has several roles in the BCB and within Bangladesh cricket, including that of the senior team's manager and selector, vice-chairman of the cricket operations committee, chairman of the game development committee and vice-chairman of the high performance committee

Mahmud is also the coach of Dhaka Premier League side Abahani Limited and the BPL's Dhaka Dynamites franchise, as well as head coach of Bangla Trac Cricket Academy. He recently said that he wouldn't mind leaving the BCB directorship if given a long-term coaching role with the Bangladesh team.

Meanwhile, Wasim Jaffer and Champaka Ramanayake, currently working as the BCB's high performance batting and bowling coach respectively, will be the senior team's batting and bowling consultants for the Sri Lanka tour. Both places in the team's coaching staff became vacant after the board didn't renew Courtney Walsh's contract after the World Cup while Neil McKenzie, the team's white-ball batting coach, is currently on leave.

"We have given charge to Wasim Jaffer and Champaka Ramanayake in these two roles. Since the series was arranged much later, McKenzie had already asked for a leave during the same time," Akram said.

Ramanayake had rejoined the BCB two years ago as a bowling coach, while Jaffer joined in May after he had impressed his Abahani coach Mahmud with his batting performance as well as the time he spent with the other batsmen in the nets.

The Bangladesh team is leaving for Sri Lanka on July 20, but with BCB chief Nazmul Hassan unlikely to return until the day before, the decision to appoint Mahmud and the rest of the temporary staff is looking like a last-minute call.