Tigers back to business after week-long training

The Bangladesh national cricket team return to practice today as their weeklong training program at Chittagong ahead of the upcoming two-Test home series against Australia ended yesterday. Tigers focused on skill training program in the opening three days of their training program at Chittagong and later got involved in a three-day practice match which was largely affected by rain. Incessant raining forced the officials to abandon the last day's play without a ball being bowled.

Even though merely 112 overs of cricket could have been played in the match, tigers can take some kind encouragement from it as players like batsman Mominul Haque [72] and pacer Shafiul Islam [five-wicket haul] have shown some signs of regaining their form. Both made their claim stronger for a spot in the playing XI against Australia who will play two Test matches respectively at Dhaka [August 27-31] and Chittagong [September4-8].

The match saw some good performances from Rubel Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Taijul Islam and Saqlain Sajib as well. However, the team management is yet to find out the right partner for opening batsman Tamim Iqbal. Batsman Imrul Kayes and Soumya Sarkar failed to live up to the expectations and they need to pull their socks up soon as the Australian pace attack would like to attack them as well as the top-order from all corner.

It was learnt that Tigers decided to abandon their scheduled practice match in Dhaka that was initially included in the practice schedule from August due to rain and instead opted to use it in developing their skill at net sessions. Though BCB tried very hard to bring Australian Stuart MacGill as their spin consultant before the series against Australia, it looks highly unlikely as he has not shown any kind of urgency yet to join the host.

BCB is looking for a spin coach since the post went vacant after they sacked Ruwan Kalpage as he did not reported in time during a preparation camp of Tigers citing security reasons.  'There is an issue of clearance regarding McGill. It is tough to tell when he will come,' Bangladesh Cricket Board's media committee chairman Jalal Yunus told reporters at Mirpur on Saturday.

"I can't clearly tell the matter of whether he comes prior to the next series or not. But I have heard that he will come here within this month," he said. "McGill has an issue of management and for this he could not confirm us when he will come to Bangladesh", he went on to say.

Bangladesh's all-rounder Shakib al Hasan and young off-spin prodigy Mehedi Hasan are expected to join the team by this weekend as they are expected to return from the Carribean Premier League that forced them to skip the preparation session.