‘This camp is about taking yourself to the next level’

With the intent to prepare cricketers for the next step, the Bangladesh Tigers have been specifically polishing the skills of cricketers that are in contention for a place in the national side. 

The likes of Soumya Sarkar, Nayeem Hasan, Nazmul Islam Apu and a batch of promising cricketers -- none of whom can be part of the Under-19 or High Performance (Under-23) set-ups -- have been engaged in an intense training camp in recent times.

Members of the Bangladesh Tigers unit may also be selected for the Bangladesh A team's tour to the West Indies in August this year for one four-day game and three one-dayers.

For players such as Soumya, who has been out of the national set-up for nearly a year, it presents an opportunity to showcase their ability.

"The main idea is to work specifically on the skills of batters. Since I am working in the batting department, I can only talk about that. But there are other coaches guiding other departments," Mizanur Rahman Babul, the batting coach of the Bangladesh Tigers, said.

"These guys have been playing matches for the past seven months. When you play continuously, there are less chances to work specifically on areas that need work. Like working on the shoulder going towards the mid-wicket or mid-off region. We designed this programme to work on and improve these aspects. Then we have the Bangladesh A team's tour to West Indies in August." Another highly-rated local coach, Sohel Islam, is working as the spin-bowling coach. He also shared his methods.

"This camp is about trying to take yourself to the next level. We even made them fill out a form describing what areas they feel the need to work on. For spinners, it is very important to be able to spin the ball and get turn. We are trying to work on how we can turn the ball using the body.

We have Nayeem Hasan, Aminul Islam Biplob and others in the camp and we tried to improve on that aspect," said Sohel.

According to the mentor of Mehedi Hasan Miraz and Taijul Islam, it is important to work with a goal instead of focusing on conventional methods of training.

"It is easy to work with a few cones and bowl at them but, if you want to improve, it is important to get the best of the resources available to you by enhancing the skill level. We will also play a four-day game against the High-Performance team and will see improvement," he added.