Riyad ends agonising wait in style
A career-saving century for skipper as pride is at stake
Sports Reporter, Dhaka
The wait is over finally. When it looks a Test century of Mahmudullah Riyad is as impossible as the world again accepts the idea of socialism, the stand-in captain stood tall in not only bailing his side out of trouble but set an improbable target for Zimbabwe, hitting his first century in eight years.
His second century, a knock 101 not out came exactly after 105 months (8 years and nine months) after he hit his first century, his career best 115 against New Zealand in February 2010.
Since then the world has changed a lot but a Test century of Mahmudullah Riyad was always elusive. He had made a revolution in his ODI career, and T20 also, which often helped him kept his Test match struggle unnoticed. But the voice still was raising, slowly but graduallywhether he should get a permanent place in Bangladeshs Test format.
Considering those factors, it was a career-saving century for him. The stand in skipper, who decided not to enforce the follow-on, came up with a captains knock to remain unbeaten 101, after their initial plan of taking a healthy lead looked to have backfired as the visitors came back strongly by reducing them to 25 for four.
It needed someone to take up the challenge and Mahmudullah decided not to shy away from the responsibility that only indicated the character he possess considering his last few innings had already raised quite a few eye brows.
Mahmudullah began his Test career in style. He made his Test debut on July 9, 2009 against the West Indies and made a dream start to his career in whites. He failed with the bat, but produced the best bowling figures for a Bangladeshi on debut. He took 8 wickets in the match, including a 5-wicket haul in the second innings to help Bangladesh seal their first ever win abroad. He did not take long to prove his worth as a batman that later converted him into a batsman who could bowl handy off-breaks.
Though he could excel in the shorter formats, it never really took off when it comes to Test cricket as despite completing over nine years in the business he is yet to accomplish the tag of genuine Test cricketer.
His lack of form in the longer format prompted team management to drop him from the 100 Test match despite being a senior member of the squad and though he returned back with some runs it never really solved his problems. Mahmudullah scored 122 runs in last 10 innings to complicate things further.
He did go through some lean patch in his 10 year long journey as he did not score a Test half century for 11 successive innings from March 2010 till December 2011 while he also did not score a half-century on 10 successive innings on two more occasions.
Mahmudullah was under immense pressure coming into the Test match as he had to overcome as firstly he needs to motivate the team after their embarrassing loss to Zimbabwe put their image at stake and secondly he needs to perform as times are running short for him. Moreover in absence of two senior playersShakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal, he had additional responsibility to bail the side out of danger.
So after reaching the century with doubles in the last ball before the tea session, his animated celebration was understandable that how badly it was needed for him. He performed a Sajdah (A Muslim ritual) to thank to Almighty Allah. He was such emotion-choked that touched his partner Mehidy Hasan Miraj also, who himself performed Sajdah with Riyad.
It was a big effort from him. He badly needed it, Mehidy said yesterday after the days game.
This was a great Test match for our batsman. Mushfiqur Rahim hit double century, Mominul Haque made 150 plus and now Mahmudullah Riyad scored century after a long time. It was personally an emotional situation for me because I was the partner during Mushfiqurs double century and Mahmudullahs century. Therefore I performed Sajdah with him.
However as a senior batsman and a member of leadership group Mahmudullah couldnt afford another big gap in hitting a century.
