Shakib Al Hasan, Bangladesh’s captain at the World Cup, has travelled to Dhaka to train with his mentor Nazmul Abedeen Faheem even as the rest of the team arrived in Kolkata ahead of their matches in the city against Netherlands on October 28 and Pakistan on October 31.

Shakib arrived in Dhaka on Wednesday afternoon, a day after Bangladesh’s 149-run loss to South Africa in Mumbai, and went straight to the Shere Bangla National Stadium to work with Abedeen. The session lasted three hours with Shakib mainly taking throwdowns in the nets.

“He arrived today. We will be training for three days,” Faheem told ESPNcricinfo. “Today, tomorrow and day after, and then he will return to Kolkata. We worked on his batting today.”

Shakib has struggled with the bat at the World Cup, scoring just 56 runs in four innings. He has taken six wickets too. All this, as Bangladesh have lost four out of their five games so far and sit at the bottom of the points table.

“Shakib probably feels comfortable working this way,” Faheem said. “I am not sure what we are going to do next – I will take each session as he wants.”

As such, the Bangladesh team has its roster of coaches travelling during the World Cup. Khaled Mahmud is the team director, there’s head coach Chandika Hathurusinghe, technical advisor S Sriram, and Nic Pothas, Rangana Herath, Allan Donald, Shane McDermott and Faisal Hossain all in various roles.

Leaving a World Cup campaign to go train with a personal coach in another (home, in this case) country is uncommon. Temba Bavuma, South Africa’s captain, had earlier left the team during the World Cup warm-up games to go back home and then rejoined the team, but that was because of “a personal situation,” as head coach Rob Walter put it.

Shakib had previously left the 2019 IPL when his team Sunrisers Hyderabad left him out of the XI for four weeks. He hopped back to Dhaka to train with prominent local coach Mohammad Salahuddin. On that occasion, he chose to focus on the upcoming ODI World Cup in England and Wales, where he scored 606 runs took nine wickets.

Shakib is scheduled to return to Kolkata on October 27, a day before the Netherlands game.