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A black strap was seen bitten throughout the game while the all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan from Bangladesh came to bat in the IND vs BAN Test match held in Chennai. It was suspected that the batter was doing this due to the issues in his eyes that surfaced last year.
The reason behind the trial of strap bite by Shakib
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When Shakib Al Hasan came to bat in the Test, he was seen biting his strap while taking a stance. Now, Shakib was suspected to be using some “tricks” to have the luck on his side while batting.
Later, it was revealed that their mentor Mohammad Salahuddin, and BCB’s chief physician Dr Debashish Chowdhury, had a chat about his issues in head-positioning. So, Shakib’s ingenious contraption, designed to prevent his head flop during his batting, was a product of his own inventive mind to bite the strap.
He had previously worn a neck brace to correct his head position while batting before inculcating the strap method. This head position problem came into the light after the issues in his eyes surfaced last year during the World Cup 2023 when he was seen to bat while keeping his head completely faced towards the sight screen in a straight direction.
The Ophthalmologists from Chennai, London, Dhaka, and Singapore concluded that Shakib has a Central Serous Chorioretinopathy (CSC), which is a condition in which fluid builds up under the retina, that can distort vision.
Subsequently, he needed a solution to work on positioning his head in a way that ensured optimal sighting of the ball, but his head was falling over so much that it hampered his technique. So he started practicing for hours to correct the posture and positioning to face the problem of vision while batting.
“He has come up with this strap. It is completely his idea. It has not come from us. He is working on a way to hold his head position while batting,” Dr Debashish Chowdhury said. “He was trying to manage this with a neck brace previously, so this strap thing is also in a trial-and-error phase. He has tried it in the nets. He has done a lot of shadows [shadow batting practice] with it too.”
David Hemp, the batting coach of Bangladesh also added “It is something that Shakib has been using during practice at various times over the last few months,” Hemp said. “He is very comfortable using the strap and feels that it assists his head position.”
During an interview shoot with Shakib, he was seen shadow practicing constantly in that particularly designed stance which made his head position still and improved the vision. He was putting all those efforts into finding out his right stance while batting due to the prevailing eye condition.
“We all have one dominant eye, so when that is giving him trouble viewing the ball, then it can be problematic,” Salahuddin, whom Shakib speaks to frequently about his cricketing skills, said.
Salahuddin was happy to see Shakib Al Hasan trying a new way to fix his head posture by biting down on his helmet’s strap.
“I think it is good for him. I didn’t tell him to do this. He came up with the idea, he was telling me last night on the phone. He ties it up around his neck, and biting down on it allows him to keep his neck and head steady. When the head and neck move, the eyes also move, which is not ideal for a batter.”
Dr Debahsish stated this experiment “It is a personal thing from him. He will understand if it is working for him or not. I think as long as it doesn’t cause a health hazard, it’s fine”. This eye condition also force Shakib to miss the BBl and Bangladesh’s white ball series against Sri Lanka.
During his tour of India in a test series, the first Test match of the series did not go well for Shakib, as he was not able to contribute much with his bat, during the first innings he scored 32 which was the highest individual score by Bangladesh batting side and in the 2nd innings he scored 25.
To talk about bowling, Shakib took 0 wickets and bowled a total of 21 overs with an economy of over 6. Questions were raised about him but to counter that, the team answered that their senior-most player was suffering from a finger injury which led him to this performance whereas in Pakistan’s series of Tests, he was good with the bowl.
The skipper of the Bangladesh Cricket team Shanto said “I look at how much hard work a player is putting into his game,” Shanto explained. “Whether he is struggling enough to make a comeback. What is their intention towards their team. How much he is willing to give to the team”.
The chief selector of Bangladesh also added “Some people might think that I am saying it because the question is about Shakib bhai. I try to look at everyone in the same way, whether it is Nahid Rana to Mushfiq[ur] bhai. More than whether he is scoring runs or not, I look at how is his preparation. What is he thinking about the team? I am happy with the way that every member of this Test squad has prepared and has been willing to give to the team.”
On Monday, the selectors admitted that this finger problem only arose when Shakib was bowling in Chennai during the Test match, there are still concerns for him, in his joining of the playing 11. Sarkar, the selector of Bangladesh concluded
“We still have time to think about Shakib ahead of our next game. We will observe him. He was 100% fit before the Chennai Test,” Sarkar said. “We have heard lots of discussions about Shakib’s finger [and why he did not bowl a lot in Chennai]. You can’t call it an injury straightaway. He didn’t feel the problem before the match. He felt it after he started to bowl. He also got hit in the same place later in the game. That has caused some pain.”
“We have time to think about it. Shakib could even play as a batter [in Kanpur]. If he feels it is affecting both his batting and bowling though, it will be a different scenario”
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