‘Not a miracle, he deserved it’
Bangladesh’s last few matches have had a tendency to take a page off some highly intense movie finishes and it’s therefore not a surprise if you have not had to use your nail cutters this month!
At first they seem to be under pressure and then a hero is born. And just when you think things can’t get any better, there sprouts another hero who, in fact goes on to take away the limelight!
It happened in the first Test when Mominul Haque’s 181 was outshone by Shohag Gazi’s hattrick and in the second Test there was Tamim Iqbal and Mominul yet again.
The first ODI at Mirpur yesterday too wrote a similar script. Mushfiqur Rahim’s 90 was good enough to take Bangladesh to a respectable total, but just when the hosts needed that extra push towards the end, Rubel Hossain jumped in with a hattrick and the best bowling figures by a Bangladeshi — 6 for 26 — which he shares with Mashrafe Bin Mortaza.
Rubel, like his teammates Gazi and Mominul, was slightly shy during the post-match conference yesterday; it actually looked as though he was merely trying to come to terms with what happened.
“It’s every bowler’s dream to take a hattrick in international cricket and I thank the Almighty that things worked out for me. I bowled in good areas today and I got support from the wicket as well,” said Rubel.
“The hattrick ball, I just tried to bowl stump to stump. It went down the leg and the batsman for some reason played a shot. Mushfiqur bhai took a very good catch,” Rubel recalled.
The captain, who’s generally very specific with his instructions, claimed to have had no say in the hattrick. “Usually Rubel always follows the plan we tell him, there’s a ball-to-ball plan. But to be honest, in that spell, I did not instruct him at all. He understood how the wicket behaved and bowled with his own ideas. The variations were very important. The credit goes to him,” said Mushfiqur.
Rubel stated that he got assistance from the pitch after it rained. “After the rain, the slower ball turned a bit, there was also some bounce and if you bowled a straight line you would get help so I extracted that,” said Rubel.
The 23-year-old had produced a similar performance in 2010 at Mirpur, when his four-wicket haul helped Bangladesh secure a three-run win over the Kiwis and seal the 4-0 whitewash. It was something that he clearly remembered. “I think I just enjoy bowling against the Kiwis, that must be it,” he said with a smile.
The bowler who underwent a shoulder injury last year, has been working on his recovery ever since. After yesterday’s game Rubel stated that he was more confident than ever.
Musfiqur concurred. “It’s not just today [yesterday]. He has been bowling well for the last few months in the Dhaka League. Apart from taking wickets [19] he also had an economy rate of 3 to 3.5. So that’s a good sign. This was not a miracle, he deserved it.”
“We probably did not expect such a good performance, maybe no one did, but he still deserved it,” said Mushfiqur, who admitted that he was slightly hesitant to bring Rubel on after the rain-break.
The captain, whose 90 set the tone for Bangladesh’s innings, stated that despite missing out on a century, he had no regrets, “No not today. I have no regrets because the team won. I was feeling a little bad yesterday because I had not scored a 50 for a while but today Naeem and I did well,” he said.
Mushfiqur provided a fitting end to the day yesterday, when he dedicated his side’s win to former Bangladeshi off-spinner Sheikh Salahuddin, who passed away yesterday morning.
Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/not-a-miracle-he-deserved-it/
