Bangladesh Test captain Mominul Haque said the Tigers’ one-off Test victory over Zimbabwe will help his team in building confidence and would inspire everyone for the next cycle of the ICC World Test Championship, starting in August this year.
In the inaugural edition of the World Test Championship, Bangladesh finished at the bottom of the points table and Mominul hopes Bangladesh players will now understand their playing roles and improve their performance in Test cricket to improve their standing in the WTC.
On July 11, Sunday, Bangladesh registered a comprehensive win of 220 runs against Zimbabwe to win the one-off Test in Harare – where Najmul Hossain Shanto (117*), Shadman Islam (115*), and Mahmudullah (150*) all have smashed hundreds.
Mominul said after the game, “I think winning this Test match would inspire everyone for the next edition of the ICC Test Championship, as this win will help us in building confidence. I hope everyone in our team will understand their playing role and improve the process we would like to maintain... that we failed to do so on different occasions.”
Hailing his batters, he noted: “The partnership between Riyad Bhaiand Liton (and also Mahmudullah's stand with) Taskin (in the first innings)... due to that Shadman and Shanto could play with less pressure. But what I liked about them was that they were playing normal cricket instead of trying to accelerate unnecessarily.
I think it was extremely difficult for Shadman as he had played a Test match three months (ago) and now he is playing another Test. In between, he did not play any domestic cricket.”
Mominul signed off by saying on Mahmudullah's retirement decision, “It's his (Mahmudullah) personal decision and it is very difficult for me to comment and more so I am not aware of it. As a young captain, certainly, it is disappointing (that Mahmudullah is retiring), and if that is not the case then it's unusual.”
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s Donald Tiripano said on the loss to Bangladesh: “It is unfortunate that we couldn't get a good total in the first innings. There are a lot of positives that came out of this game. Guys tried to score some runs and build partnerships by putting their heads down. But we should work hard on our batting and make sure that we don't play catch-up cricket in a Test match.”
He concluded, “We started well in the first morning. The wicket was doing a bit. After taking six wickets, we let them off. Mahmudullah and Liton Das put together a partnership. I think we have to make sure that when we get into such positions, we have to get them by the throat and we have to finish them off.”
(With Cricbuzz Inputs)
