Cricketers need to control their curiosity, opined sports psychologist
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||CF Correspondent||
Ali Khan secured his second term as the sports psychologist of the Bangladesh team and depending on his experience with the side so far, he believes that the cricketers need to control their curiosity in order to avoid any kind of trouble, as a journey without any exit plan can make them pay heavily.
Lots of national-team youngsters in the likes of Sabbir Rahman, Nasir Hossain, or Mossadek Hossain have been subjected to heavy criticism due to their off-field behavior in the recent past.
BCB recently appointed the Bangladeshi-born Canadian sports psychologist Ali Khan to conduct a week-long course with national-team cricketers during the start of the ongoing series against Zimbabwe. He drew a comparison between the new and the old players regarding how they could end up choosing the wrong path.
“Success and fame come for a price and that price is not just hard work. So many things will attract you and you have to learn to say no. If you get inside the cave without an exit-plan because of curiosity, you don't know how to go out. So, they just kept following the bad things. They hadn't planned to go that far but when they realized, it was too late,” Ali was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz.
“Tamim Iqbal, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiq, Mashrafe - they were celebrities from the beginning, but cricket was not extremely popular then like it is now. They had the scope to get carried away by fame, but they controlled themselves which is why they have been in the team for this long. But when the juniors came to the team, cricket was already at the peak of popularity. And the culture has also changed because things like social media weren't popular back then.
“But now, connecting to the bad things has become so easy that it is literally in your pocket. It's harder to say no to it than before. These kids have become celebrities overnight. They haven't developed the maturity to keep and respect their position. So, sometimes they fail to maintain things. That is why the challenge is higher for the juniors than it was for the seniors. What the board should do is, when they are in the under-19 team, they should learn the life skills - how to protect yourself from fame, etc,” he added.
Ali opined that cricketers should take criticism in a positive manner as that can ignite them to prove their critics wrong. However, he advised that one should get the bad things into their head if it is coming after they have given their best of efforts.
“You can take it as a negative thing but once you are a celebrity, it is part of life. It helps you, it pushes you to go beyond to make yourself happy. There's not just criticism of your performance, other social issues are coming up for the celebrities.
“So, criticism is helping them be focused and not do something unpleasant. Criticism can be done in a good way, but if the journalists or other people are doing it in a bad way then you have to learn to overlook because you cannot make everyone happy. As long as you know that you tried, gave your best and did the right thing, you've to learn to forgive and forget if the criticism is still coming,” said Ali.
