For the time being, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) will not allow any of the players to train at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium,or for that matter any other venue. Mushfiqur Rahim communicated with the board for training in the stadium at Mirpur, but his request was rejected by the board. The BCB reckons that due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, this is not the right time to train in the stadium.
So far, Bangladesh has had 55,000 positive COVID-19 cases and 746 people died. The BCB understands the seriousness of the situation and makes the environment safe for playing cricket. Therefore the body rejected the request from other cricketers as well.
The BCB chief executive Nizamuddin Chowdhury told the media, “Mushfiq had been talking with us, he wanted to start personal training. But, we told him that this is not yet a safe time to do so, he should do personal training at home. “
According to Chowdhury, “Training is important but for us, the safety of the players is more important. A few other players wanted to know whether they would be able to do individual training. But our message for everyone was the same. We are in the process of disinfecting our facilities. But the work has yet to be done.”
It’s been almost 4 months since the ungodly virus started to wreak havoc. Cricket boards around the world are beginning to contemplate practice camps. Though Bangladesh also plans to do that, but currently no details were provided on when it will start.
Chowdhury further explained, “We ought to take the entire situation into consideration. We can not rush into anything. Many countries are resuming their activities; we will definitely do the same. But we can not provide an exact date right now.”
In addition, the BCB was of the opinion that they should follow the guidelines defined by the International Cricket Council (ICC). He mentioned during the interview, “It is right that some other countries have started their training activities following the guideline from ICC,and we will do the same.”
As for Mushfiqur, he’s been training at home, running on his treadmill and staying fit. He also shared pictures of his training sessions on Instagram. Tigers’ ODI skipper Tamim Iqbal has recently praised Mushfiqur for being the most hard-working among his teammates. The left-hander drew his parallels with Indian skipper Virat Kohli too.
