'Attitudes improved'
There was a feeling of reunion when the country's elite players gathered at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday for the first official day of training, as after virtually non-stop cricket for nearly 10 months since September 2016's ODI series against Afghanistan, the Tigers took an extended break following their semifinal finish at the Champions Trophy in mid-June.
When it rained in the late morning, a lot of the youngsters were in thrall to the words of wisdom and levity of skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza. They had trained individually over the last week, but yesterday was when all of them had converged.
Following the comforts of the Eid break, the cricketers will be in the hands of fitness trainer Mario Villavarayan for the rest of the month to replenish their fitness levels ahead of another gruelling season which is scheduled to start with Australia's visit, followed by a tour of South Africa.
“We are having a fitness camp after a long time. We have been playing eight months non-stop, both domestic and international. This is a good opportunity for me to see where they are individually, in terms of their fitness level, and to work on whatever weakness they have to work on in next three to six weeks,” Villavarayan told reporters in Mirpur yesterday.
After three years in charge of the Tigers' fitness, the Sri Lankan is in a good position to judge how the attitudes to fitness have evolved.
“That's one of the biggest advantages that I have achieved working with these guys: a change of attitude. They want to do more. They want to work harder. They train on their own now,” Villavarayan said. “That was not happening a while back.”
One famous face missing from the gathering of cricketers was Tamim Iqbal's, with the opener currently in a stint with Essex Eagles in England's Natwest T20 Blast. “He knows what he has to do. You have seen how he has improved in the last three years. So we can trust that and consider that he will do his work.”
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