The gymnasium of Bangladesh Cricket Board is now full of activities. The temporary gym set in the dressing room-2, is now teeming with equipments and the National players are frequently seen there working on their fitness.

Even a year back BCB did not have any gymnasium at all at BNS ground. The players used to take physical training either in BUET or BKSP fitness centers. After Bangladesh got the Test Status BCB realized it for the first time that a fitness center had to be put up at BNS soon. They set a makeshift gym in the ground floor at BNS, which lacked adequate equipments. From June, the number of instruments began to enhance and now it has turned out to be a fine quality gym.

Today's cricket is power cricket. The conventional ideas and theories have altered a lot. A player's fitness is given more importance than his other cricketing skills. In the competitive International Arena, it is argent for a player to hold his fitness at its highest degree.

In Zimbabwe, Bangladesh witnessed some incredible fieldworks from the hosts. Some spectacular fielding as well as some outstanding catches made the differences between the teams. Keeping it in head, BCB earlier opted for Trevor Chappell who is branded as a fielding coach. In addition the physiotherapist duo Gavin Benjafield and John Gloster are lending their hands for necessary guidelines.

The gym has some charts hanging on the wall showing the instructions of weight training essential for the cricketers. It puts on the right track of different weight training needed for batsmen or bowlers or even wicket keepers.

Bikash Ranjan Das, Manjurul Islam, Khaled Masud and Aminul Islam from National Side are regularly seen inside the gym sweating to every pore. They spend almost an hour and half over this training session. Among others Rajin Saleh, Taposh etc. from Bangladesh-A are found hooked up with it persistently. Rajin Saleh, who looks a bit like a professional body-builder, is quite serious about this affair. He hardy takes a break in a week. " There is no way you can escape weight training these days. You will be miles behind if you try to dodge this," says Rajin.

Gavin Benjafield, the physiotherapist from South Africa and the instructor of the Bangladesh Team, is often spotted doing bench-press with 30kg!

Other players of the National Squad are more or less enjoying these trainings. An enthusiastic Habibul Bashar reveals, " These work outs are now inevitable. I am a better fit now and feels a lot more comfortable while on the field. Credits go to all those gym trainings and stretches."

© CricInfo