Former India left-arm spinner Sridharan Sriram has returned to the Bangladesh team as its technical consultant for the upcoming World Cup. Sriram will be joining the team in Guwahati on September 27, as Bangladesh begin their preparation for the two warm-up matches ahead of the tournament proper.

The BCB’s cricket operations chairman Jalal Yunus said that Sriram will provide them with local knowledge and will be reporting to Khaled Mahmud, who returned as team director earlier this month.

“Sriram has joined as the technical consultant. We will get a lot of technical support from him,” Yunus said. “He knows all the wickets in India. He can tell us about the weather conditions too. Very few of our players have played in India, so his input will be quite important.”

Sriram is not a new face for Bangladesh cricket. In August 2022, he had joined as the technical consultant, though he was effectively the team’s head coach for T20Is. That came immediately after he left his six-year stint as Australia’s spin-bowling coach.

He had steered Bangladesh through to the T20 World Cup in Australia, where they won two games and were in contention for a semi-final spot till their last group game.

Even though Sriram didn’t continue after that, he remained in the BCB’s plans, especially after Russell Domingo resigned as the head coach last December. And when Chandika Hathurusinghe replaced Domingo in February this year, there were still discussions that Sriram would be the T20I head coach before talks fizzled out.

Sriram also recently joined as the assistant coach of the IPL franchise Lucknow Super Giants, so it is likely that his time with the Bangladesh team will again be limited to a World Cup.

Come the World Cup, apart from Sriram, Bangladesh’s backroom staff will be led by team director Mahmud, and will include head coach Hathurusinghe, assistant coach Nic Pothas, fast-bowling coach Allan Donald, spin-bowling coach Rangana Herath, fielding coach Shane McDermott, and assistant fielding coach Faisal Hossain.