What now for Mominul?

I won't say two innings in the Asia Cup was enough to judge Mominul, but had he scored in those games it would have better for him.

Bangladesh selector Habibul Bashar

After the tour of West Indies in August this year, Mominul Haque got a hint from the Bangladesh team management that he was in consideration for a comeback in the ODI side for the Asia Cup.

There were also some guidelines provided to the 26-year-old, labelled as a Test specialist, to increase his range of shots in order to cope with the demands of the limited overs format.

During Bangladesh A team's tour of Ireland in August, Mominul tried to follow those instructions and remained aggressive, smashing a career-best 133-ball 182 against Ireland A in the fourth one-dayer.

"I had to learn how to play aggressive cricket in completely different conditions and it was an entirely new experience for me. It was satisfying in a sense that I had managed to play a lot of shots throughout the series. I had very limited shots at my disposal and probably that is the reason it had an impact on my career in the shorter formats,” Mominul had told Cricbuzz following the Ireland tour in August.

He was rewarded with a call up to the ODI squad for the Asia Cup. The left-hander made his ODI comeback after three years with the game against Afghanistan followed by the game against Pakistan, but scored only nine and five runs respectively in those two matches.

After only two failures, Mominul finds himself in the cold again after being dropped from the 15-member Bangladesh squad for the three-match ODI series against Zimbabwe at home, which could have been an ideal platform for the left-hander to regain some confidence.

National selector Habibul Bashar admitted that it is unfortunate for someone like Mominul to lose his place only on the basis of two matches.  However, the selector stated that their emphasis was on experience while they were willing to experiment with new players.

“We had to bank on experience and team combination to form the team. I won't say two innings in the Asia Cup was enough to judge Mominul, but had he scored in those games it would have been better for him. As he did not score runs, we had to look for a few new players which is why he was dropped,” Habibul told reporters yesterday.

Instead of doing any good to the cricketer's confidence, this uncertainty and confusion over his place in the limited overs format might have an adverse impact on his performance in Test cricket -- the format where he is most fluent.

“We did not get the expected performance from him in Test cricket recently as he is one of the most important players in the Test side. We don't know whether his thoughts over ODI cricket have hampered his Test performance, but we surely don't want that. At the moment we are considering him more in Test cricket,” he added.