Bangladesh national team strength and conditioning coach, Nathan Kiely, highly appreciated the work ethic and the attitude of the players, as he thought that they were working harder than the last series.
The national team players have been participating in fitness sessions after their last series against Pakistan.
Kiely said that they were making the most out of the window that they would not generally get.
‘I suppose just as a general overview of what we’ve been doing, we have got the players together to do some physical work. Whenever we get a break in the competition schedule, it’s a good opportunity to do some physical work,’ Kiely said while briefing the media on the ongoing camp at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur on Tuesday.
‘One unique aspect of Bangladesh cricket is that we play nearly year-round without an off-season. A lot of the more western sides generally have an off-season. We don’t get that luxury here.
‘So when we get these small windows, we try to do some physical work and some physical testing,’ he added.
On Sunday, the players participated in a fitness test conducted at the National Stadium athletics track.
Kiely conducted a time-trial test instead of the popular yo-yo test. However, the Australian explained why he chose the time trial.
‘It’s often debated what the best test is. The reason I wanted to use a time trial was that it’s very simple for us to deliver that test,’ he said.
‘You don’t need any equipment to run four laps of an athletics track. You can measure it on any grass cricket ground as well. So, it makes it more accessible for our domestic players to do the same test as a national team,’ he further said.
‘And it’s also that there’s less debate in terms of your results. When you do the yo-yo and the BEEP tests, sometimes players might only just miss, but it’s hard to make a call to pull them out and tell them they’ve finished,’ he added.
He also stated that the time trial is as effective as the others.
He said, ‘The great thing about the time trial is that the clock doesn’t lie. In my experience, the players who win the yo-yo test and the BEEP test also win the time trial. And the guys who are poor in those tests are also poor in the time trial.
‘So, you still get the same understanding of which players are fit and which players need to do more work, regardless of which test you use,’ he added.
Kiely also praised the work ethics of the players highly.
He said, ‘Generally, when there’s a break in the schedule, the players are very good at taking ownership of doing a lot of physical work. So, I’d say that they’ve actually been doing more physical work after that last series finished than less.’
‘Our boys worked extremely hard. I think evidence today, if you saw some of the conditioning that we did, there were some really challenging drills. If you didn’t think they were challenging, I’d welcome you to come and do them with us one day. You’ll find out,’ he added.
‘Their attitude and their effort are outstanding. They push themselves extremely hard. The biggest challenge for us is finding opportunities to do big chunks of physical work, which we don’t have the benefit of like in England or in Australia,’ he concluded.