Selectors, coach happy with fitness result
Pic: CF
|| CF Correspondent ||
Bangladesh chief selector Minhajul Abedin and national team’s strength and conditioning coach Nick Lee expressed their satisfaction over the results of the fitness test of the cricketers.
Only three cricketers- Nasir Hossain, Sohag Gazi and Subahashish Roy failed in the fitness test from the 113 cricketers who were scheduled to appear for the fitness test and according to officials involved in the procedure most of them done reasonably well in the beep test, earning more than 11 points.
Shakib Al Hasan was expected to do the test on Monday and he came to report for it but eventually it had been deferred to Wednesday after consulting the national team physiologist Julian Calefato.
Minhajul said that he is pleased that majority of the players scored the required points in the beep test, which is the yardstick used by the Bangladesh Cricket Board to measure cricketers’ fitness.
‘‘Everyone is performing well; almost 90 per cent did well. We set the benchmark to 11 which is our minimum score to play first-class cricket,’’ said Minhajul after conclusion of the beep test.
Lee also found the fitness of the players satisfactory considering they were not part of any BCB-run teams during this pandemic hit year.
‘’The selectors wanted to see the fitness level of first-class cricketers and get them prepared for the Twenty20 tournament. I think everybody knows that this year has been tough and it was difficult to carry on physical exercises. So far, I saw most of them doing well, some faced trouble,’ Lee said.
Lee also praised the players for focusing on fitness during the COVID-19 break but said they need work harder to achieve match fitness.
‘‘I am satisfied after seeing the national team and HP cricketers. During lockdown they did not have to play and focused on fitness. But there is a big difference between physical fitness and match fitness, which is the biggest challenge,’’ he said.
