Tigers get back to business as conditioning camp begins

451

DHAKA, Aug 19, 2019 (BSS)- The Bangladesh national cricket team returned
to their usual business as the conditioning camp for the one-off Test series
against Afghanistan and subsequent tri-nation series involving Zimbabwe and Afghanistan began at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium on Monday.

Apart from Shakib al Hasan who is on vacation in The United States of
America (USA) and Sabbir Rahman who had recently tied the knot, all of the
other players of 35-member squad were present on the opening day at the home
of cricket.

This is the first time, cricketers got busy since the recent tour of Sri
Lanka where they whitewashed in three-match ODI series following the
disappointing outing in the World Cup.

“We are doing the fitness test after eight months. Because we have been
playing non-stop cricket since October,” Tigers conditioning coach Mario
Villavarayan said here on Monday after the opening day’s session.

“It is important for me and for the players to find out where they are and
how we need to push them in the next coming months.”

“And it’s understandable because we have not done fitness camp for eight
months. So it’s natural, they are not at their best but not bad. So I am
happy in that sense,” he said.

“We did the fitness test to find the condition (of the players) in terms
of their running fitness, where they are in terms of their strength and
others to work on the areas where we need to work on. There are some guys who
need to work on their fitness and there are some who are doing well, but they
need to improve too,” he said.

“I’m not going to say how many or mention the names but all of them need
to keep improving. Even the guys, who did well, need to improve,” he said
adding that he did not believe four or five-day’s fitness camp.

“Personally I do not think it’s enough. I think I need at least four to
six weeks but this is international cricket. We cannot get that kind of time.
So, we will use our skill camp to do fitness sessions as well to keep
improving,” he said.

In the opening day Jahurul Islam, Farhad Reza, Abu Jayed Rahi and
Mushfiqur Rahim were standout performer in the fitness test.

Mario Villavarayan said that both Mahmudullah and Saifuddin, who sustained
injury earlier recovered sufficiently to attend the fitness test.

Mahmudullah had shoulder injury while Saifuddin missed the tour of Sri
Lanka due to back pain.

“Mahmudullah and Saifuddin completed what we needed them to do. That’s
quite satisfactory, but we need to keep pushing,” said Villavarayan.

The inclusion of Mashrafe Bin Mortaza in the fitness camp was quite
surprising considering he does not play any format apart from one-day and
there is no ODI’s in place during the near future.

“We have not got any ODI cricket till next year. So I do not see any
reason he should be doing fitness test now when we have one-day cricket in
after six months. So we will start work with him in the future,” said
Villavarayan.

The only cricketer who could not take part in the fitness test was Soumya
Sarkar as he had hurt his leg. It was learnt Soumya will start running after
two days.