"Boot camp experience will help us in International cricket" – Ashraful

Bangladesh captain Mohammad Ashraful expressed his satisfaction over the week long commando style boot camp and believes the experience will help the young Tigers to adjust with the pressures of international cricket.

The camp, organized at Bangladesh Army's School of Infantry and Tactics in Sylhet, ended yesterday and was an important part of the team's preparation for next month's ICC World Twenty20 in South Africa.

Tigers enjoyed the first ever boot camp; Syed Rasel in action © Cricinfo

Despite suffering some minor injuries, most of the players enjoyed the action packed training program and are willing to undergo similar programs in future.

In the post-camp briefing Bangladesh captain was high vocal about the positives of the commando effort. "Each and every player in the camp firmly believes that this hard training will make them tough both mentally and physically.

"Honestly speaking, initially we were a bit shaky with a kind of training we had never attended before but ultimately we started to enjoy everything about the new adventure. "Definitely we would have missed something if we had not taken part in this kind of training."

The players were thoroughly overwhelmed by the self-counseling part of the program in which they had to discuss each others strengths and weaknesses.

"It's really an amazing experience the way we talked openly in this session. Everybody sometimes admitted their faults or defended their position.

"We criticized each other. I must say it is the best part of this training. We have had discussion in our team meetings but never spoke as openly as we did in this session," Ashraful added.

This was the first ever boot camp for Bangladeshi cricketers and only members of South Africa bound Twenty20 squad participated in the program, but Bangladesh Cricket Board want to arrange similar program for A team, Academy team and age group teams in near future.