Bangladeshi cricketers’ Junaed Siddique (L) and Nasir Hossain (R) touch the wig of shaven-headed Mashrafee bin Murtaza (C) during the first day of the Tigers preliminary training camp at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Sunday. — New Age photo

The general fitness level of the Bangladesh national cricketers has made trainer Grant Luden happy as they began the preliminary camp on Sunday ahead of their forthcoming Zimbabwe tour.
Luden, who is in charge of the camp in the absence of interim coach Shane Jurgensen and fielding coach Jason Swift, said he was expecting the worst from the players, many of whom have had no serious cricketing activities for the last six weeks.
Luden measured the waists of 22 players on the opening day of the camp to see if they had gained extra fat. The players also underwent blip test and yo yo to see their level of fitness.
Luden said the team management has a plan to put in a special effort on players’ fitness, something which has become very crucial in a season that is expected to be dominated by Twenty20 cricket.
Bangladesh will play a tri-series in Zimbabwe and before that a representative side will play three Twenty20 matches against Trinidad and Tobago. The season will culminate with the ICC World Twenty20 in September in Sri Lanka where they will face New Zealand and Pakistan at the group stage. 
‘I expected the worst. But I am really happy with the boys,’ Luden said after seeing the players avoid extra fat.
‘The boys had gone home and their mums must have given them some good food. I mean their skin folds are up but that’s okay,’ said Luden.
‘Same things happen to me as well when I go home to South Africa. When I come back I put on a few extra kilograms but that’s part of life.
‘We are just going to work a little bit harder and reduce it,’ he said.
Skipper Mushfiqur Rahim, former captain Sakib al Hasan, opener Tamim Iqbal and middle-order batsmen Mohammad Ashraful and Alok Kapali were not present on the opening day.
Luden said they will gradually increase the intensity of fitness training ahead of the ICC World Twenty20. 
‘Twenty20 is very explosive cricket so the players’
fitness level needs to be very high,’ he said.
‘This year’s training programme is going
to be tougher than what it was in the last year’ said Luden
‘We are going to
look at the explosive power, speed and agility as these things are pretty relevant to Twenty20 cricket,’ he added.