DHAKA, April 20, 2024 (BSS) - The Bangabandhu National Stadium (BNS) saw cricketing activities after 19 years as the cricketers used the newly installed athletics tracks as part of their fitness drill today.
 
The drill was held to assess the players physical condition ahead of the upcoming home series against Zimbabwe, which starts on May 3.
 
Before the cricket discipline moved to the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in 2005, the BNS used to hold cricket competition regularly.
 
Almost 35 cricketers who are at the consideration for the national team took part in the session, which was termed as 'physical performance assessment'. National team strength and condition coach Nathan Kiely supervised the session in the extreme heat that saw most of the cricketers did considerably well.
 
The training started at 6:00am and continued till 7:30am at the track which was prepared fully for activities around two months ago. It nearly took two years to get the 400m tracks prepared.
 
Amongst the current cricketers, only Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah Riyad had the experience to play cricket in BNS even though those were not the International cricket. They in fact played domestic cricket here at their tender age.
 
The cricketers did four laps of running before taking part in a 40m sprint. The players then returned to the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur for the next part of their training.
 
Young pacer Nahid Rana, who was just three years old when cricket moved to the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium from BNS and another pacer Tanzim Hasan Sakib finished first in each of their groups respectively as the cricketers, split into two groups, completed the 1600m running drill.
 
The fitness drill in fact was done keeping in mind the Tigers' packed upcoming schedule. Bangladesh are set to play eight Tests, three ODIs, and at least 18 T20Is in the next seven months, starting with five-match T20 series against Zimbabwe in May.
 
 "There is nothing like pass or fail, so it is not mandatory to know that who did well or bad. Through this test, we just tried to assess the physical condition of the players," said Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) trainer Iftikharul Islam after the training session today.
 
Iftikharul also explained as to why the BNS athletics track was chosen for the fitness drill.
 
"Because there was a matter of measuring the time and so we chose this athletics track. You know there are a number of methods followed internationally, but what we did was follow the 1600m time trial method. Proper timing can be done in the athletics track, so that's the reason. The players also found it different because it was something new to them," he added.