Mushfiqur comes good when the chips are down: Siddons
Bangladesh batting coach Jamie Siddons praised Mushfiqur Rahim’s knock, and felt the senior batter always comes through when the chips are down. Mushfiqur scored 126 off 166 balls – his 10th Test ton – and added 159 runs with Shakib Al Hasan (87) in their fourth-wicket stand to help the host take a first-innings lead of 155 runs.
“It was amazing. Again, we were in a little bit of trouble with him at the other end and, Mushy generally comes good when the chips are down, he sticks in there and makes sure he gets his call for us and got the score going nicely. Again, he was aggressive when it was required,” Siddons told reporters on Wednesday.
“When the bad ball was there he (Mushfiqur) put it away. He was very disciplined around his defense and his leaving game and so I was really happy with that,” he said. “In Test Cricket we need to have that,” he said. Siddons also felt Shakib would’ve been frustrated for not reaching a century himself.
“Yeah, it was a bit frustrating for him. I reckon the bowler changed his tactic, bowled off spin well outside off and tempted him into that shot. So, he’d be more disappointed than me,” he said.
“I guess he (Shakib) just kept playing the way he wanted to play. I mean, he played the sweep shot quite well throughout the innings, but, with that tactic being employed, it was probably the wrong shot. And you make one mistake when you’re batting and you’re out. I don’t think it has anything to do with getting towards a hundred. He was on 80 odd and in the ODI he was a little bit closer. I’m sure he’d love a hundred, but his contribution in the team overall, we’re happy with that,” he said.
Jamie said that they are trying to play aggressive brand of cricket while added that from now onwards they are expecting to put Mehedy Hasan at seven considering it will allow them to pick at least five regular bowlers in their playing XI.
“Yeah, pretty aggressive I thought. We were served up a few bad balls, so it was good that the boys were ready and willing to put them away. So, the scoring rate went quick, which took the game forward really fast. Happy with the way we batted,” said Siddons.
“I think we’ve been building to that for a while now. And of course, we play Ireland, so we were a lot more confident to go aggressively against them,” he said.
“I think Mehidy is a batman now a proper all-rounder that bats. He’s proven that in one day cricket, Test cricket. The 50 he got today was really well timed, aggressive but still working the ones and holding up the end, protecting the bowler at the other end,” he said.
“And in one day cricket he’s seen as one of our key batters as far as his hitting ability and so as an all rounder he is sitting beautifully on number seven,” he said.
Siddons added that now his focus is developing tailenders as they are expected to have bigger roles with the bat in current times.
“We’ve been putting in a lot of work. Probably Ebadot’s looking a lot improved. Haven’t had a lot of Khaled on tour with us. He’s not a white-ball player, so I don’t do any work with him that much,” said Siddons.
“But Ebadot and Shoriful as well, who hasn’t really been around, been injured and stuff, and not in the team, so it’s hard to put work into when I’m in another country and they’re here. But I think Ebadot has improved. I mean, his effort today wasn’t great, but he’s been a number 11 for a number of years and now he’s not batting at 11. So that’s a good thing. But we need to get better, Taijul needs to be a better player than that if we’re gonna only play seven batsman,” he said.
“He( Taskin) is very keen to be seen as an all-rounder. At the moment he’s still a bowler that can bat a bit. But he’s improved outta sight and I see that with him. I see that with Ebadot. Ebadot’s a much more capable batsman now, at least holding up an end and Taskin’s someone that can score runs. He works hard on his batting and the people that you have time with, you can put time into and they will get better, but he’s looking good and normally, he would be sitting there at number eight,” he concluded.
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