Bangladesh Cricket Board is planning to include a sport psychologist in their national set-up and High Performance unit in the coming days, BCB chief physician Debashish Chowdhury confirmed to Cricbuzz on Saturday (July 11).
A BCB official said that they would assess the development of the Bangladesh Women and Under-19 side in the coming days as they would be having sessions with Ali Khan, a Bangladesh-born Canadian sports psychologist, who has worked previously with Bangladesh's national cricketers on two occasions.
BCB game development and women's wing chairman on Saturday approved the proposal of appointing a sports psychologist after it was tabled by the BCB's medical team recently for players of their respective wings.
"We have got the approval today by BCB game development and women's wing and it has been decided that we will bring the under-19s and Women's sides under the purview of these psychologists as soon as possible," Chowdhury said.
"And we have plans in the future to gradually bring High Performance and the national team under the purview of these sessions. But we're taking a look at how these work on a test basis. While our primary discussion with him [Ali] is over and he said that he wanted three to five sessions, we had to discuss some more of these technical issues with him. We want to do this in three sessions and if someone needs a separate special session, we will arrange a separate special session for them."
Debashish added that they chose Ali over other candidates as he spoke Bengali and had a unique mode of operation.
"One of the reasons we choose him is that he speaks Bengali, and he has an idea about our culture. We first thought about bringing in a sports psychologist. Later, we felt that now the importance of a mental trainer is more than that of a sports psychologist due to the current situation.
"We're starting this way, but that doesn't mean we don't need a sports psychologist. If needed then we will obviously include that in future. But at the moment we think that the mental trainer will be more appropriate."
Earlier, Bangladesh Head Coach Russel Domingo revealed to Cricbuzz that he wants the Bangladesh players to freely open up about mental health and the BCB seem to be making sure that they are aware about the importance of mental health, a topic still considered a taboo in the country.
John Stephenson
john@cricketinvestor.co.uk
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