Environment around Bangladesh team 'dirty' - Khaled Mahmud

Khaled Mahmud is no longer interested in the job of Bangladesh team's technical director, saying the environment around the players has become "dirty". He made these comments after the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) said it was unlikely to find a head coach before the Nidahas Trophy in March.

It is increasingly possible that the current coaching setup will go with the team to the T20 tournament in Sri Lanka considering the board has already rejected Richard Pybus and Phil Simmons' applications for the head coach's position.

Mahmud said Bangladesh's loss in the ODI tri-series final and the Test series has put him under pressure. He claimed he was being unfairly targeted, even though several previous Bangladesh coaches had begun their careers with defeats. Dav Whatmore, Jamie Siddons and Chandika Hathurusingha had all started their stints poorly.

"Personally I am no longer interested to work with Bangladesh cricket," Mahmud said. "I honestly feel it is becoming very dirty. I have always worked for the development of Bangladesh cricket. There is no self-interest involved [on my part]. But I am no longer interested.

"The board will decide whether I should be going to the Nidahas Trophy. The fact that I am still around after our defeats is the biggest talking point. A lot of big coaches started off with bad results. Bangladesh's performance may be because of our planning but there are more stories."

The only stories he elaborated upon were his gripe with the media and the talk about the Dhaka pitch. Mahmud questioned the Bangladesh players whom he said were not ready to battle on the spin-friendly track.

"I don't want to give any excuses whether it was a turning wicket or a bouncy track. If I am a player, I should play well in all types of wickets. There's no point using the wickets as an excuse.

"Wasn't the wicket tough for Roshen Silva who was playing only his second Test match? He struggled, he fought. We didn't fight. I didn't see that someone struggled for a long time and then got out to a brilliant delivery. It becomes viral when people start talking about the wicket," he said.

Mahmud said that they had prepared well in advance to play on spin-friendly pitches, and reiterated that Sri Lanka's lack of experience meant that they could have been easily countered in home conditions.

"Everyone knew how the wicket would play at least 15-20 days ahead. We were unlucky in Chittagong where the wicket didn't play as it should have. If we could play against Australia on a turning wicket, so is Sri Lanka God?

"What do the Sri Lankans have that we can't play against them? They only had Kusal Mendis and Dhananjaya de Silva. How many Tests have they played?".