Soumya Sarkar wants to continue enjoying his natural game

Sarkar hit a ton in the final ODI against Zimbabwe.

Sarkar celebrates his ODI ton against Zimbabwe | AFP

Bangladesh batsman Soumya Sarkar has finally succeeded in making an impression with the bat after a string of poor performances, as his brilliant century helped the Tigers to win the third and final One Day International and series against Zimbabwe at home on Friday (October 26).

He was not originally a part of the Bangladesh squad for the ODI series against Zimbabwe but played in a warm-up game, where he scored a brilliant century to return his form and eventually got a call in the middle of the ODI series at home. He scored 117 off 92 balls in the final against Zimbabwe.

On being asked how he prepares for the challenges after being called up midway through a series, Sarkar said, “I am always keeping my bags packed. Tomorrow I will be heading for Barisal to take part in then NCL. The only time I felt bad was when I was returning after playing the practice game against Zimbabwe as I felt if I could play the three-match series I could have scored a lot more. When they called me to join the team I was telling myself 'ok an opportunity arrive let's see how it can be utilised'. I just wanted to play without any pressure and enjoy my game. My thought process was like 'okay if I do badly the worst that can happen is that one more failure will be added in my list'.”

The 25-year-old admitted that the negativity on the social media impacted his mindset, saying: “Probably I was influenced by all the talking going around me. Facebook played a big impact because there was a lot of negativity and I literally got carried away by them and it got stuck deep into my head. There were headlines that suggested everything I am doing is a mistake and I found out people are neither interested in writing anything positive nor they have the ability to do that. Later I stopped using Facebook and even decided to be an introvert, trying only to focus on good things and even decided to lessen down my practice because when you are going through a lean phase nothing will go right.”

Meanwhile, Sarkar revealed how and where he got the confidence to return to his form after losing his place in the Bangladesh One Day squad. He noted, “I think my head started to work better when I was playing in Ireland and because I was leading the side there were certain roles that I had to fulfil. My confidence started returning since then. I began to start thinking if I can stay at the wicket it will help me and the team. I regretted missing the one-day matches because doing well there would certainly increase my confidence.”

He signed off by saying, “Since then whenever I am playing I am enjoying and I just want to keep it that way. If I had failed today there would have been a lot of talks like why I am included and all those things so I decided it was better to just play my natural game and leave the rest to destiny.”

(Input: Cricbuzz)

 
 

By Rashmi Nanda - 27 Oct, 2018

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