Ahead of the test against Bangladesh at Mirpur, few Australian batsman were witnessed to practice at the nets without wearing pads.

The pitch at Mirpur is expected to turn a lot and thus this method is adopted by the Aussies to deal with the Bangladeshi spin attack. Aussie youngster Matt Renshaw and Usman Khawaja who are trying to find a place in the playing 11 for the side were seen practicing in the similar fashion.

It’s nothing new!  Rahul Dravid, Michael Vaughan, and Dean Jones have mentioned the benefits of practicing without pads previously. Glenn Maxwell said that it was the Aussie coach Justin Langer who brought forward this method in the team while he coached 5 years back.

“It’s probably something we did back in 2012 when ‘JL’ (Langer) was the batting coach,” Maxwell told reporters at Sher-e Bangla National Stadium on Wednesday.“We did it a little in the nets when we were in Dubai (for Australia’s pre-India tour camp earlier this year). I think the main thing is to basically use your bat: if you don’t have the safety of your front pad there it makes you get your leg out of the way and actually use your bat. ”

“It’s more about refining your defense and making sure you’re trusting the fact you’ll hit the ball and not hoping that your pad’s there just to save you. It’s more for the (spinners) that are hitting the stumps repeatedly and Bangladesh does that really well. They bowl the ball stump-to-stump and they put pressure on your defense. That’s one thing that we have worked on and will continue to work on.” he added.

He also voiced how the whole team is trying to work more on their batting techniques and work on flaws. Captain Smith saying that Bangladesh are no more minnows and they want a clinical performance before they take on India in September, the team is backing up.

“I’ve done a fair bit of it, I did a lot of it back home, a lot of my practice revolves around defense and expanding from there,” Maxwell concluded.