|| CF Correspondent ||

Bangladesh’s Team’s former psychologist Ali Azhar Khan believes that the Under-19 cricketers are in need of exceptional mental care than the seniors to go through this pandemic situation.

The cricketers of the Under-19 team of Bangladesh are far behind then the senior cricketers' mentality due to their young age and that is why they are in need of exceptional mental help to go through these tough time as all kinds of cricketing activities are closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“This is obvious that, the Under-19 players could be psychologically a bit more vulnerable to crisis and adversity compared to senior athletes due to their age. Especially because younger individuals are naturally not very well in maintaining patience,” said Ali.

“Even though most of the players are working hard to maintain the fitness level and doing some basic technical drills to keep the muscle memory, due to the lack of realistic challenges and the lack of variations they may get affected by boredom and mental fatigue a bit quicker than the senior players,” he said adding that growing uncertainty of the crisis could adversely affect the minds of young cricketers.

“The unknown timeline of this pandemic is creating uncertainty and fear of players’ psychology. These young athletes may go through some level of anxiety and frustration,” He added.

Ali also advised the players to set some small sorts of goal to achieve during staying indoors to help them preserve their motivation.

“In order to control this adverse situation, players may consider having various kinds of drills and fitness in their daily routine, which certainly would help them enjoy a little bit more in this quarantine life,” said Ali, who is an experienced life coach and also have good amount of experience of working with different sports teams and business corporations.