DHAKA – Akbar who led Bangladesh Under-19 to lift the Youth World Cup earlier this year is focused on to hone his skill more as he believes he can’t only rest on the World Cup laurels for more days.
Akbar had already got a reality check in the BCB President’s Cup in which he completely failed to make a mark with his batting when much of the focus was on him.
Playing for Tamim Iqbal-led Tamim’s XI he failed to cross even double digit figures in any of the match, which sparked criticism whether he could make it big despite being a World Cup winning captain.
But Akbar got yet another chance to rectify his mistakes as he is now working with Toby Radford in the High Performance (HP) Unit.
“The camp is actually for improvement, the basics here are the same as before. The main goal is to improve from where I was before,” Akbar said.
“What I feel is that I try to enjoy wherever I am. I try to learn most from there, now I am in HP, I am trying to learn maximum from here, I am trying to enjoy as much as it is possible here.”
He went on to say: “It’s been a long time, it’s been about 8-9 months (since we won the World Cup). So, it feels a lot better when I think about it but I don’t think anyone thinks about it now that we did it. Now we have to look ahead.”
Akabr had already understood that he needs to show the intensity to compete with others as the life in senior level cricket is not as easy as it was in the junior level.
“I think the difference is the intensity, and the competition here is a little bit more. The age limit here is low as we are playing with senior cricketers. So, I think we need to be more competitive here,” Akbar said, adding that he got the reality check in the BCB President’s Cup after his failure.
But still he believes the BCB President’s Cup was a learning curve for him.
“Personally, it was a difficult experience but I learned a lot. We were together for more than a week, learning a lot of positive things,” he remarked.
“I was in Tamim Bhai’s team and I talked to the likes of Tamim Bhai, Mithun Bhai, Bijoy (Anamul Haque) Bhai. I have tried to find out as much as it is possible from them. They also gave a lot of good ideas. I hope I can use their words or their experience at the next level.”
However, he said the HP coach Toby Radford will watch their batting video before giving his output on their batting.
“It’s been two days, it’s hard to say now [how it is going]. But the thing he (Radford) emphasized these two days was my batting. He is watching everyone’s batting videos. Maybe he will give us an output by watching the videos that we need to improve it or move forward with other things.”BSS
