While left-arm pacer Shoriful Islam is on his way up and making a name for himself in the Bangladesh cricket team, Akbar Ali, the wicket-keeper batsman who led the Under-19 team during their maiden World Cup glory last year, is hoping to soon be capped for the national side.

"Our main goal is to feature for the national team one day and to serve the country for a long time. Our immediate objective will be to rectify our mistakes so that we can at least improve our game a little before being called into the main team," said Akbar before leaving the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) headquarters in Mirpur yesterday for Chattogram, where he will be part of BCB's High Performance (HP) squad's training camp.

The HP squad's training camp will start at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram from 22 August and is scheduled to continue till October 8.

The BCB has announced a 22-member HP squad for the camp, who will play three one-dayers and two four-day matches against the Bangladesh A side during their camp in the port city. The three one-dayers are scheduled for September 2,4 and 6 while the four-day matches will be played on September 9 and 15 respectively.

Even though it has been challenging for the BCB to arrange camps and programmes for players out of the national squad during the Covid-19 pandemic, the cricket's governing body of the country must ensure players like Akbar remain involved in such training camps to avoid fading away just after a few glimpses at the age-level. 

The camp will be held in a bio-secure environment. Chairman of the High Performance Committee Naimur Rahman met the HP squad on Friday and stressed the importance of the HP programme for the players in terms of reaching greater heights. He also reminded the players of the gravity of maintaining the bio-secure protocol during the ongoing pandemic.

HP Squad: Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Parvez Hossain Emon, Munim Shaharier, Shahadat Hossain, Mahmudul Hasan Joy, Towhid Hridoy, Anisul Islam, Imranuzzaman Imran, Akbar Ali, Minhajul Abedin Afridi, Rakibul Hasan, Hasan Murad, Tanvir Islam, Rishad Hossain, Shafiqul Islam, Mukidul Islam, Tanzim Hasan Sakib, Shahin Alom, Sumon Khan, Noman Chowdhury, Rejaur Rahman, Ruhel Mia.