Mushfiqur Rahim yet again staked claim as the finest batsman of Bangladesh amid the criticism over his captaincy and wicket-keeping. The resilience with which he defied a mighty Indian attack was the testament as to why he is regarded so highly despite his unimaginative captaincy and reckless job behind the wicket.
\nFor logical reasons, the criticism was relentless. He made a school-boy like mistakes behind the wicket and also put down a catch during the first innings of India. \u2018What if\u2019 if he didn\u2019t make those mistakes was the common regret when he himself led the team\u2019s revival to take the side in a strong position which forced India captain not to enforce follow-on. After a huge criticism, someone needs huge mental strength to show such sort of performance and Mushfiqur displayed it, showing an unwavering resolve.
\nHis 127 off 262, laced with 16 fours and two sixes is believed to be the finest century amongst the five centuries he got so far. Considering the situation and his mental condition, it should be rated higher. And he also made some unbelievable record on the course of this century.
\nHe is the only the third keeper-captain to score a century on Indian soil. Legendary Australian keeper Adam Gilchrist and former Indian captain MS Dhoni (5 tons) are the other two players.
\nWhile he joined Gilchrist and Dhoni, what is eye-catching is that among his five centuries, four came in outside from home as a keeper-captain. Remaining keeper-captains collectively scored four centuries in Test cricket away from home.
\nAnother amazing fact that is Mushfiqur Rahim\u2019s batting average outside home as captain is 73.66. It\u2019s the second highest in Test cricket if minimum 500 runs are taken. Don Bradman averaged 85.63 as captain outside home.
\nIt was for the first time in international cricket that both the team captains and wicketkeepers scored centuries in a game. India\u2019s captain Virat Kohli and keeper Wriddhiman Saha scored centuries while Bangladesh\u2019s keeper and captain, Rahim scored a century.
\nHis incredible resistance helped Bangladesh amass 388 which is the highest score by a visiting team in India while batting second since 2013. This is also the first instance of a visiting team scoring 300 plus in India in the 2nd or 3rd or 4th innings of a Test match. Even he is so far the most successful Test captain of Bangladesh, leading them win in five matches including against England.
\nThe stat clearly showed that captaincy is not burden for him but still for some reasons, he could never come up with innovative decisions on the field which was prime reason that he is criticised as captain always. And at the same time, his relentless failure behind the wicket compounds the situation. Yet he showed stubbornness to stick to his wicket-keeping job which irritates the people to such extent that even his epic knocks never highlighted such way.
\n\u201cI think he is the best batter at the moment,\u201d said Bangladesh batting consultant Thilan Samaraweera. \u201cFrom what I have seen in September he is in very good form. In Chittagong game against England, we were chasing down a total in a tricky pitch and we were almost there because of him. But later he got an unbelievable ball from Gareth Batty. He is one of the best Test batters for our team because he has a solid game plan and he has guts.\u201d
\nLike Samaweera, everybody knows how gutsy as a batsman he is. But he could never quite execute this gut into his captaincy and wicket-keeping job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mushfiqur Rahim yet again staked claim as the finest batsman of Bangladesh amid the criticism over his captaincy and wicket-keeping. The resilience with which he defied a mighty Indian attack was the testament as to why he is regarded so highly despite his unimaginative captaincy and reckless job behind the wicket. For logical reasons, the criticism was relentless. He made a school-boy like mistakes behind the wicket and also put down a catch during the first innings of India. ‘What if’ if he didn’t make those mistakes was the common<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5730,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5729"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5732,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5729\/revisions\/5732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}