cricket

Updated: Nov 14, 2019 07:37 IST

It has been a couple of days of intense training for the Bangladesh cricket team ahead of their first Test encounter against India in Indore. With the T20I series ending 2-1 in favour of the hosts, newly-appointed captain Mominul Haque and his men were hard at work as they look to upset their much-fancied opponents. On Wednesday, they decided to end their gruelling schedule with a friendly game of football at the Holkar Stadium.

Ryan Cook, who is their fielding coach, put to use different methods to drill in the lessons to the players. After taking them through their paces in outfield catches, he brought out a rather unique drill to help the players hone their close-catching skill.

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He stood crouched, stuck the face of his bat out and slapped the ball on it which then ricocheted off to the close in fielders. Mushfiqur Rahim, who has ditched the gloves in Test cricket, looked very sharp and even took a blinder in practice. There were few inputs put across by Cook to his fielders as the session drew to a close.

Football to conclude a session of cricket. pic.twitter.com/6yxFh50oog — Manish K Pathak (@manishpathak187) November 13, 2019

Skipper Mominul also Haque believes that the upcoming series will be a challenging one and one that will test all the players. He also spoke about the challenge of the pink ball and said that it will be a new experience for both sets of players.

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“It will be a challenge and it will be an opportunity for everyone. We practised with the pink ball in Dhaka, but we haven’t practised with the pink ball ever since coming here. Between the first and second Test, we will get time to prepare for the pink-ball Test. I do not have any experience with the pink ball, so I do not know how much it swings and moves. I do not think it would be a problem. It will be an opportunity as we do not know when we will play with the pink next,” Mominul said.

(With agency inputs)