Najmul intent on perfecting sweep ahead of Sri Lankan test

Bangladesh began their preparation for the upcoming two-match Test series against Sri Lanka at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium on Monday in a different environment, if not anything else.

Leading up to the series, the most talked about issue is whether football is taking over cricket in terms of popularity, with all eyes fixed on Bangladesh's AFC Asian Cup Qualifier game against Singapore, scheduled at the National Stadium on June 10.

Since the arrival of English Premier League star Hamza Chowdhury, who is currently playing for Bangladesh, there is football fever all around, while cricket has taken a back seat.

It was exposed on Monday as the cricketers known to be followed by huge media contingent usually had seen only a handful of cameras during the opening day of their preparation

The Bangladesh cricket team's recent performance in the recent past also played a big part in declining their popularity among the public, and the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka certainly is very crucial to get back the confidence of their fans and they looked quite aware of the reality.

Bangladesh began their preparation without their head coach Phil Simmons as he is expected to arrive on June 11, but newly appointed pace bowling coach Shaun Tait seemed quite busy throughout the evening working with four pace bowlers- Nahid Rana, Khaled Ahmed, Ebadot Hossain and Hasan Mahmud.

However, skipper Najmul Hossain seemed quite focused to get prepared for the job at hand, as after completing the net session spent a lot of time playing sweeps and reverse sweeps against throwdown specialists, suggestive that he is aware of the spin threat of the islanders.

"Where will we play? In Sri Lanka when the ball will be turning where will we score runs? In a wicket that will help spinners it is very difficult to survive by defending," Najmul explained to Cricbuzz following the practice when his attention regarding such an extensive period of sweep and reverse sweep.

"In those kinds of spin-friendly wicket sweep is kind of a defense and why I am saying this is because it is a scoring option and the chance of getting out is very slim because you won't get leg before while chances of getting bowled is lesser," he said.

"But it is not something that you can use all the time, but this is certainly a scoring option and in wickets where you are attacked by a lot of spinners and who are bowling in good areas for a long time," he said.

"In Bangladesh when someone gets out playing sweep and reverse sweep we say that we don't need to play that shot, but you can see where world cricket has advanced, and we are still talking about sweep and reverse sweep. To me, this is one kind of shot like drives and cover drive," he added.

Apart from having extensive sweep sessions another thing that caught everyone's attention is his driving sessions with shorter bats, that is quite smaller than the bat cricketers use in the middle.

"Use of small bat is because of head position and your shoulder. Even if you want, you cannot be upright when you are batting with a small-sized bat. At times your head is slightly backward and your shoulder is upright but when you are batting with small bat if your shoulder is upright in that case the ball will go below the bat and if you want to play with the middle of the bat in that case your head position and shoulder need to be perfectly placed otherwise you cannot bat at the middle of the bat," he said.

"You don't need a coach, as the ball that is not being hit by the middle of the bat suggests that your position is not right, either you are upright or your head position is not right. If you are playing with that bat, you have to play in the perfect shape that I feel is required for Test cricket," he added.

Najmul needs to lead by example during the Sri Lanka tour to help his side regain their confidence, which certainly hit rock bottom after successive below-par performances.

Bangladesh will fly on June 13 to play the series that comprises two Tests along with three ODIs and as many T20Is.