Mama's advice works best

Nazimuddin, the latest star to emerge from Bangladesh, says that the tough training at a Under-19 pre-World Cup training camp helped him immensely as a cricketer, in an interview on TigerCricket.com.

“One day we were taken for an ice-bath at 7 in the morning. It was winter and I had never experienced anything like standing inside a drum with ice up to the neck. I thought why don’t they kill me instead."

However, Nazimuddin's mother had a part to play in ensuring he didn't give up.

“After the ice-bath there was another 40-minute ordeal at the swimming pool. When I got back to the dorm I called my mother on the phone and just asked her ‘You want to see your son alive or you want a cricket player?’ and she could hear me weeping. She paused for a few seconds and then said in a steely voice, ‘a son who is a cricket player’. I was so pissed that I did not call home for the next four weeks. Looking back I guess if she had played the typical mom and told me to come back home then I would never have gone on to play international cricket.”