Tigers vice captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza spoke about his current fitness, views on the Indian Cricket League (ICL) controversy and the upcoming series against New Zealand during a break in training today. Excerpts follow:

Question (Q): After the Australia series ended you had gone to Melbourne to see the surgeon who had performed the surgery on your knees five years ago. What was his assessment?

Mashrafe Mortaza (MM):I went to Melbourne too see Dr. David Young. He checked my knees and told me that there weren't problems with the ligaments. That was a big relief as I was obviously a bit tense when I felt pain there. He in fact was very surprised that I hadn't missed a game due to my knees during the last five years and said that he had expected me earlier!

However, there was a bit of fluid collection in the left knee but that won't stop me from playing. Dr. Young has told me to continue with my natural bowling and has suggested that I should get the fluid cleared sometime over the next six to 12 months. It is up to me to decide when I should have that minor surgery because I will need 6-8 weeks off from the game.

Q: How do you look at seven contracted players joining the ICL?

MM: That's their decision. Personally I don't see any point in mulling over those who are not here. We got to move forward with what we have and I think we have some pretty good players who have come in and they all want to do well.

Q: Who among the seven do you think the Tigers are going to miss most?

MM: Difficult to say really. Again we have to look at this in a positive way. If I am out of the team then there will be someone taking my place and that's reality. Who knows some of those players might have been injured and that wouldn't have stopped us from picking a team.

Q: Do you expect Bangladesh to recover from the ICL blow and be competitive against New Zealand?

MM: I firmly believe that we are going to do well. That is a gut feeling. Also the wickets here will be easier to bat on for us and I just have this intuition that we will perform much better than we did in Australia.

Q: As a professional cricketer what is more important to you money or playing for the country?

MM: Obviously money is very important. I play for the money too but my priority is playing for Bangladesh.

Q: Did you receive any offer to join the ICL?

MM: I did receive an offer. I had received a few phone calls from India before going to Australia to join the ICL and build a team but refused the offer straightaway. That was the end of it for me.

Q: Did you inform anyone about it? Did this have an effect on the team's performance in Australia?

MM: I didn't think it was necessary to inform anyone because I was not interested in the offer. I also did not find anything that would suggest to me that this had an affect on the performance in Australia. I believe the players tried their best but we were not up to it in batting.