Domestic cricket will make transition easier- Domingo
Pic- Cricfrenzy
|| CF Correspondent ||
Bangladesh head coach Russell Domingo said that he feels Bangladesh need to play domestic cricket before stepping towards international cricket.
With the Sri Lanka tour postponed, Bangladesh Cricket Board is now mulling resumption of competitive cricket in the country. BCB had initially planned to start their cricketing activities through the tour of Sri Lanka with the proposed three-match Test series, followed by domestic cricket.
Since March there has been no competitive cricket in the country due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Dhaka Premier League, the country's traditional 50-over club tournament that is considered to be the major source of income for the majority of cricketers, came to an abrupt halt earlier this year.
Meanwhile, some of the national cricketers were allowed to resume individual training and the BCB later started a skill-based national camp to prepare for the tour of Sri Lanka.
Though the tour is postponed this situation has forced the BCB to shift its focus towards domestic cricket, irrespective of whether the tour happens or not.
The BCB, though, is aware of the challenges when it comes to starting domestic cricket - including managing close to 60 cricketers at a time, keeping them isolated, chalking out the schedule, defining the SOPs, among other things.
‘’However, it [not playing against Sri Lanka] does leave us short of international cricket. It has now been nearly seven months since the team played together and after the last Zimbabwe series we seemed to be making some good strides. BCB are doing some domestic leagues. There have been one or two invites from outside nation’s maybe to play cricket in December. Nothing has been confirmed as yet,’’ said Domingo.
‘’I think rightfully domestic cricket needs to be going. As a coach I prefer guys play domestic cricket first and then go into international cricket. So if there’s any form of domestic cricket, that’d be first-class,’’ he said.
“Going from a friendly to international cricket is a big step up. So it is important that we play domestic cricket, which makes the transition easier. It will benefit the national side immensely. There’s no substitute in playing games. We need to play as many games as we possibly can before we get back to international cricket. We have to find game time of high quality before international cricket is very important for us,’’ he said adding that their biggest challenge is to keep the cricketers motivated.
“The big challenge is now to take that practice and preparation and build it into game time. There’s a big difference between training and actually spending six or seven hours in the field and having to bowl again. We need to make sure that we gradually bring them back to international cricket. If we can have some warm-up games like we do here, and then step it up in domestic games, I am sure these guys will be ready in three to four weeks, for international cricket,’’ he said.
“I think there’s always going to be that challenge. That’s why we have to be innovative with our training. We have a big group of guys at the moment. We are trying to have some games, because if we do the same thing over and over without any particular goal, it is going to be very challenging.
