Sports Desk:

While the general people were apprehensive about Shakib Al Hasan’s fitness due to his absence from cricket for one year, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) officials and his coaches repeatedly said they were not worried about his fitness.

In fact, from their first hand experience of watching Shakib from close, the BCB officials and Shakib’s coaches were sure that he had no lacking in his fitness. And it was proved in the beep test too in which Shakib finally scored 13.7, the best amongst the 113 cricketers who went through the fitness test to attain the eligibility of playing the Bangabandhu T20 Cup.

“I am feeling nice that he (Shakib) will start playing cricket again. I don’t know what he did in USA but when he was here before, his fitness was very good,” Shakib’s childhood coach Salahuddin said some days ago.

“If he worked with fitness in USA, I think it would be an advantage for him to pass a fitness test. And I am not too worried about his game. I believe today or tomorrow he will return to the previous place,” he added.

Shakib in fact had completed a four-week training camp with his mentors Mohammad Salahuddin and Nazmul Abedeen Fahim at the BKSP in September. The training was conducted mostly behind the closed doors.

He mainly did the training camp as he was slated to play the second Test of Bangladesh’s tour in Sri Lanka. The series eventually got postponed and Shakib left the country for USA, cancelling his training.

Shakib didn’t let people know what he did behind the closed door in BKSP during his training period but it is learnt he took the help from BKSP athletics coach Abdullah Hel Kafi and young boxing coach Ariful Karim in a bid to keep his fitness level in the right shape.

Seeking help from athletics coach and boxing coach was the testament of his seriousness and innovativeness regarding his fitness.

Shakib was often criticized for taking training sessions lightly but when he did train, he did it in planned-wise. He missed some matches in 2018 and 2019 due to his injury and it looked he was not at his best.

During the 2019 IPL, when he was not getting chance to play for Sunrisers Hyderabad regularly, Shakib didn’t waste his time by sitting idle. Rather, eying the 2019 World Cup, he called up his mentor Salahuddin in Hyderabad and did intensive training with him. He reaped the rewards by creating records after records in the World Cup, which he finished with 606 runs and 11 wickets. No player in cricket’s extravaganza’s history has the double of 500 plus runs and 10 plus wickets.

“An elite player like him thinks differently always. Shakib didn’t compromise with his fitness and reaped the rewards in the fitness test,” BCB trainer Tusher Kanti Howlader, who conducted the beep test, said.(Source: UNB)