Members of the Bangladesh cricket team returned to training on Thursday amid match-fixing scandal that cast a dark shadow over the country’s cricketing landscape for the last few weeks.
A total of 26 players from a preliminary squad reported to coach Shane Jurgensen and trainer Stuart Karppinen for the opening session, Tigers’ first since they returned from Zimbabwe.
Sakib al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Abdur Razzak, Shahadat Hossain were absent while batsman Junaed Siddique refrained from training after reporting due to his injury problem.
Sakib is currently visiting his in-laws in the US while Tamim has taken leave for his wedding preparation. Razzak is expected to join today having returned from Malaysia where he had his belated honeymoon. Shahadat, on the other hand, has been suffering from fever.
The camp, which will continue for two weeks up to June 30 initially, will mainly focus on fitness training, something the Tigers have not done for months because of their busy international schedule.
The players had to undergo two measurement tests on the opening day – the anthropometric measurement or fat measurement and movement confidence – which trainer Karppinen said will give him an idea of their fitness needs.
‘What we are trying to do with the test is to establish a lot of baseline fitness measures,’ Karppinen told reporters after the first day’s training at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium.
‘We are not just guessing. If a player comes in and we suspect that he is down in performance, we have his baseline measurement and a consistent point of reference to be able to say the type of fitness and conditioning that he needs to work on,’ he said.
‘We are not trying to involve same programme for every player.
‘We are trying for an individual programme based on their age, injury history, the training age, how much training they have done and also the position they play. We put a big emphasis on the need of the fast bowler,’ he said.
Karppinen, himself a former first-class cricketer and also worked with the Australia cricket team as its strength and conditioning coach, was happy to see the BCB provide him some time on the issues.
‘We needed access to the players as they have come out of a fairly dense period of playing,’ he said.
‘It is difficult to make improvement when you are always playing international cricket.
‘But the good thing is that we have a period to be working on those things, and getting access to them.
‘We, however, need a regular access, not just 10 to 12 days but 10 or 12 weeks throughout the course of 12 months,’ he said.
The Australian added that they will divide the players mainly into two categories – the ones who have weight problems in one category and the others who do not have the same problem in the other category.
‘If a player cannot control their own body weight, if a player can’t perform a range of tests just because of his own body weight, a series of chin-ups, a series of single leg swap and some walking rangers, if they cannot control that movement for their weight there is no point in us putting external fitness measurement,’ he said.
‘So what we will do we get the right technique, good form, good control flexibility first and then we start loading the external weight,’ he said.
-With New Age input
