Imrul happy to be back batting despite getting blisters on his hands from it

Imrul Kayes was one of the eight cricketers set to take part in training after the Covid-19 break in Mirpur.

After seeing his teammates Mushfiqur Rahim and Mohammad Mithun take part in training on the previous day (Sunday), he too was eagerly waiting to get back on the field on Monday.

However, after waking up early, he was disappointed by the sight of persistent rain but that did not stop him from going to the Sher-e-Bangla National cricket stadium for practice.

Although the rain prevented him from running in the field, he was able to get some batting practice and train in the gym

The left-hander was scheduled to arrive at 10 am and he did so on time. 

At first, he started off with a half-an-hour of gym and then 45 minutes of batting in the nets followed by another session in the gym.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Imrul, like the other national team cricketers, was unable to come to the stadium and train but like the others, he worked on his fitness as much as possible at home. 

But for a long time, he was unable to bat in the nets, so everything felt a bit new to him. 

In fact, something that would happen to him when he batted in the nets happened again as he picked up blisters on his hands. 

It's a common occurrence for cricketers for the first time against cricket balls, to end up with blisters on their hands and it was no different for Imrul here. 

As a result, the 33-year-old was unable to bat for as long as he would have liked and ended after 45 minutes. 

How he will bat on Tuesday is something that he will have to think about now. 

He told The Business Standard, "The first day went quite well. But the blisters on my hands prevented me from batting too long. I'll have to wait for a few days to bat again. But if things get better, I might even be able to bat tomorrow. Even though it's not a big blister, it was causing some pain, so I decided to stop then."

"It's going to take a bit of time to get back in the groove of things. My body movement, footwork will all take time to be the way they were. One week without practice can cause problems in seeing the ball and here we went four months without any cricket. So that's obviously a problem," he said.

But Imrul wanted to focus on the positives: "I got to hold the bat and practice in the nets after four months, so that was definitely a different feeling and I'm feeling good."

Even though there are no scheduled games for the national team or in domestic cricket, Imrul wants to make the most of this time: "I hope I can use this time well and work on skill development and also my fitness. I think it's a very good time for cricketers to use for working on their skills and improving fitness."