If the Bangladesh cricket team needed inspiration to face up to a massive challenge, there is none more qualified to give them a pep talk than Musa Ibrahim.
The first Bangladeshi to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the mountaineer met the Tigers for a brief exchange during their team meeting at the team hotel yesterday, on the eve of the World Cup opener against India.
Musa showed slides of his expedition and linked his own experience with playing cricket for the Tigers to understand. “I talked to them about my plan from 2007 and how I had 2010 in my mind as the year to climb the Everest,” said Musa, who was invited by Bangladesh Cricket Board vice-president Ahmed Sajjadul Alam.
“It was possible through determination, teamwork and the way I worked the mechanism. I tried to impress upon them that mountaineering is like cricket,” he added.
Musa reached the summit on May 23 last year, an unthinkable achievement for someone coming from Bangladesh. “If anyone can climb to the top of Mount Everest, why can’t a boy from the plains? I told them that you must believe in what you want to achieve,” he said.
