When the custom around the world is denying the visiting team an opportunity to train as much as possible, Bangladesh is surprisingly doing exactly the opposite thing with the West Indies team.
The Bangladesh Cricket Board loaded their first net session on tour with a horde of spinners beyond their obligation, raising quite a few eyebrows.
West Indies came to Bangladesh knowing that they have to overcome Bangladesh’s potent spin attack should they want to regain the series they lost two years ago.
The spin threat played in their mind so much so that before coming to Bangladesh they held a week-long camp in Dubai where they invited the spinners of the UAE and Afghanistan teams in their practice sessions.
Bangladesh are also aware of West Indies batsmen’s weakness against spin attack and it was evident in the squad the selectors named for the first warm-up match.
The BCB XI which will face West Indies in a one-day match today is loaded with batsmen and all-rounders.
But surprisingly the BCB sent five additional bowlers to bowl in the West Indies net on Thursday all of whom belonged to the GP-BCB National Cricket Academy.
The additional bowlers included at least three left-arm spinners in Sanjamul Islam and Shaker Ahmed Fazle Rabbi, which was more surprising as Bangladesh rely heavily on left-arm spinners.
Promising leg-spinner Sabbir Rahman and off-spinner Asif Ahmed were among
others, who bowled in the West Indies’ net. All Academy bowlers were added to the regular net bowlers, who did not, however, include any left-arm spinners.
According to a Memorandum of Understanding between the BCB and the West Indies board, Bangladesh are obligated to provide only six net bowlers to the visitors in each of their training sessions. In this group only two off-spinners were included.
BCB officials held Academy chief Ross Turner responsible for surpassing the limit and showing West Indies an extra generosity following a request from the West Indies team’s batting consultant Desmond Haynes.
Turner, however, does not see anything wrong with it.
‘Desmond asked for them and I agreed because I think it would have benefitted the academy bowlers as they got the chance to bowl to world class batsman,’ said Turner.
‘There is no harm in doing so as this is part of international cricket culture. Also any of these academy bowlers will not play in the series, so I don’t think we are revealing our strength to them,’ he said.
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