Bangladesh’s spin-bowling coach Rangana Herath believes Shakib al Hasan can prolong his career if he can maintain his fitness.
Herath, who is conducting a four-day spin camp with 32 spinners to strengthen the spin-bowling pipeline said Shakib should be concerned about his fitness.
“He’s a very experienced guy. You know he is always up to the mark. He only needs to think about fitness. If he can keep his fitness levels up, he can go a long way,” said Herath.
Shakib bagged five wickets and scored a fifty in the second Test, however, there was a lack of spinners in the Bangladesh team which cost the match. Regarding the purpose of the camp, Herath said, “I always thought that we require some extra spinners as a backup. That would be an advantage for Bangladesh. For example, Naeem was injured, we didn’t get expert off spinner because of the injury. So, we have to keep a record of these spinners and use them for the benefit of Bangladesh cricket,”
Herath however was of the opinion that Shakib can still go a long way.
Shakib himself was not bothered by the lack of preparation he had with the ball before the Test series. Having recovered from Covid-19, he underwent just one practice session. He was more focused on purposeful training rather than putting in long hours at the nets.
Physical fitness and match fitness were two different things for Shakib. He had plenty of confidence that the fitness he had was going to be enough even on sizzling heat, particularly at Chattogram.
“It depends on the individual player’s fitness on what can be termed match fit. Match fitness and being physically fit are two things. There are many who bowl over after over, even fast bowlers who bowl 6-8 over spells but they don’t cross 10 in the beep test. There are others who get 10-13 in beep test but can’t bowl five overs on the trot. So definition of fitness is different in different places. I played four matches in the DPL in the heat and that helped me. I knew that the first two days in Chittagong was going to be difficult for me and then slowly it will be become easier. It was about taking a chance [regarding being able to play] but it was calculative,” Shakib had remarked when he was asked about match fitness and bowling long overs in Tests since returning from Covid-19.