Had a point to prove: Mushfiqur
Mushfiqur Rahim did not exactly receive a warm welcome upon his arrival at the crease yesterday. He initially found it quite difficult to manoeuvre the array of bouncers fired against him from both ends.
From ducking down to jumping off the surface, from hurting his fingers twice to bringing the top part of his bat into play frequently, it was arguably the worst welcome for a player who had just returned from an injury.
A number of blows later, the wicketkeeper-batsman got his eye in and began playing his favourite shots. The cuts through and behind point and the pulls through mid-wicket were played with ease as time passed, and he eventually went on to score his fourth Test hundred.
Speaking to reporters during the post-day press conference, Mushfiqur indicated that he had taken the blows in order to prove a point.
“We needed to play well overseas because of all the talk going on about how we were going to have a tough time. Someone had to step up and the momentum was set by Tamim [Iqbal] and Mominul [Haque].
“Their knocks gave us the courage to show our skills,” said Mushfiqur.
“We have done just one part of our job and there are still three more days, but it is really satisfying to put up a partnership like this. After we lost the ODIs and the T20Is we were under tremendous pressure to show something. Because everyone thought that Bangladesh could not play overseas. And the boys really stood up,” he added.
Mushfiqur was not able to score his second double hundred yesterday. But in the context of the game, his 159 was as important as Shakib's 217. The duo's stand of 359 runs for the fifth wicket has given Bangladesh an extremely rare chance of winning a Test overseas.
Mushfiqur admitted that neither of the batsmen expected to post such a big stand.
“The plan? Well we wanted Mominul [Haque] to play long, but early wickets can fall. Shakib told me that the wicket was quite good. I tried to survive the first few balls and eventually I thought I could go on.
“We just tried to bat normally and play to the merit of the delivery. We did not think that we would go on to score such a big score, but we just tried our best to score as much as possible since such opportunities don't come that often,” said Mushfiqur.
He reiterated how much he enjoyed batting alongside an 'attacking' Shakib; so much so, that he also celebrated on his partner's behalf.
“I love to bat with him. We have a couple of big partnerships in ODIs and T20Is together. He does not talk too much. He just gives a few hints and that helps me all the time. We have been playing together since our under-19 days and there is a good chemistry,” said Mushfiqur.
“Shakib didn't look troubled at all and neither did he show any emotion. It didn't seem to matter to him that he was scoring a 100 or a 200 (laughs),” he added.
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