Mahmud: New role is exciting

Bangladesh team’s technical director Khaled Mahmud admitted that he is enjoying his new role as the national cricketers took part in the gym and practice session during the national camp ahead of the tri-nation series, comprising Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. The Tigers started training Thursday morning as the pace bowlers got the chance to bat. “Definitely I am enjoying my role here. Although the experience is nothing new for me, I am still enjoying it. When skill training starts, generally batsmen will bat for a long time. But pacers don’t get too many chances to bat. And bowlers can contribute with the bat in every format. Sometimes 15-20 runs by the tail-enders become so important in a match. Pacers will start bowling practice from January 4. And recently, pacers played the last round of the National Cricket League. So everyone is a bit tired now. We worked with pacers’ batting [Thursday],” Mahmud told the media Thursday.

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Mahmud informed that they are working on basic skills like accuracy and seam positioning with the Tigers pacers as the recent performances, particularly in the 2017 Champions Trophy and the South Africa tour, were not upto the mark. “Our pacers did not perform well abroad recently. But still, we made some noticeable performances. For instance, Rubel [Hossain] had a brilliant spell in the Champions Trophy. But it is true that the performance level is not that much impressive in the last two years. So we will work on basic things like accuracy and swing bowling,” Mahmud explained. In recent times, young pacers like Abu Jayed Rahi and Abu Haider Rony performed well in the BPL 2017. When queried if the Tigers bowling attack will see changes in the tri-series, Mahmud said experience is also key in international cricket.

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“Everyone is important for us. Experience of Taskin [Ahmed] or Rubel is also required for a team. The matter of concern is, these days we are observing that batsmen are playing big roles in winning matches. We want bowlers to win the games for us as well. Already we have seen Mustafizur Rahman winning matches for us. Mehedi Hasan Miraz also won games for us. So we talked with them in this regard. We have so many young talents in our squad right now. But you have to consider the value of experienced bowlers as well,” said the former Bangladesh captain. Bangladesh have a busy schedule both at home and away next year. Considering that, the board has decided to call up 32 cricketers for the camp. “We have many matches in 2018. Generally we are not used to such kind of busy schedule. So injuries may appear. Or a player may be in off-form. That’s why we announced a bigger pool of cricketers for the camp. If we have a big pool then we can replace a player easily,” the BCB director added.