The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has recently renewed their contract with former West Indies batting all-rounder Phil Simmons as head coach of the national team till the next ICC 50-over World Cup in 2027. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Star's Samsul Arefin Khan, Simmons talked about his motivation behind taking up the job for a long term, his assessment of the Tigers' performance in the Champions Trophy and his vision with the side in the coming years. The excerpts are as follows:

The Daily Star (DS): How would you rate your first six-month stint with the Bangladesh team before the contract renewal?

Phil Simmons (PS): It was excellent. The players in front of me, the support I got from the board and cricket operations, it was all really good. There was no reason for me not to extend my contract.

DS: Many top coaches are opting to only take up franchise jobs, what prompted you to take a long-term job with the Bangladesh team?

PS: I enjoyed the short tenure with these players. Their attitude of wanting to win, wanting to work hard and wanting to practice hard were why I wanted to extend my contract.

DS: Many of the long-serving seniors have retired now, so you will have to depend more on other players as you begin your new tenure. How do you view it?

PS: The thing is the senior players will move on at some point. Now, the young players are going to come in and fill up the places of the seniors who have left. We need to be thinking about the 2027 World Cup. You have just lost two of your well-known players – Mushfiqur [Rahim] and Mahmudullah. So, we have to look at who is going to fill those spots. If we can start from now, it will give the replacements a chance to form their own identity in those spots.

DS: How do you rate Bangladesh's performance in the Champions Trophy? What actually went wrong?

PS: I think we just didn't bat well. That's one of the biggest takeaways. We can work on how we can score consistently and play risk-free from overs 11 to 35. Because we have done well in the Powerplay and death overs but we need to make sure we do well in those middle overs as well. That's where all the strong teams are doing really well.

DS: The Tigers will play two ICC events –2026 ICC T20 World Cup and 2027 ICC World Cup – during your next tenure. What will be your plans in those meets?

PS: I think planning has to start from now. We have to start putting things together, decide how we want to play T20 first of all and then 50-overs cricket. We need to figure out what is the best way for the Bangladesh team to play in order to win tournaments. The T20 planning will start with the Asia Cup. After that, we will assess what are the things that need to be changed and we will make them in time. So, there is a lot to be done.

DS: Bangladesh's international schedule is jam-packed in the coming months. What is your opinion on player rotation to keep players injury-free?

PS: I think from a batting perspective, it will be difficult. I don't really believe in too much rotation in batting. You need to make sure players get time in the middle. However, from a bowling perspective, we have a good number of fast bowlers whom we can rotate and we actually need to rotate as we will be playing a lot of matches from the end of next month till the BPL later this year. We need to rotate our fast bowlers to keep them physically strong and improve their skills.

DS: What is your biggest dream with Bangladesh team in the coming days?

PS: My thoughts are that we can get a lot better than we are in all three formats. We have young players who are hungry to do well in all three formats. We have to find a Bangladeshi way of playing cricket.