When Chandika Hathrusingah kept experimenting with the other players while he was the Bangladesh’s head coach, he at the same time kept persisting with some players, giving them chance in the national team regularly even if they were in poor form. Soumya Sarkar was one of the players who got the blessings from Hathurusignha during his bad time while some other players didn’t get this benefit from the head coach, prompting the fans across the country lash out at the coach and Soumya Sarkar in the social media. Both of them were trolled in such extent that sometimes it crossed the limitation.

However both Hathurusingha and Soumya Sarkar were unfazed by it. What was the logic of Hathurusingha about sticking with Soumya consistently was that he wanted him to be matured during the 2019 World Cup and hence he persisted with him, leaving out others. Soumya’s ability to take world class bowling in disdain, what he showed early in his career, was the main reason that Hathurusingha kept favouring him despite the criticism.

However the fans and some media even touted Soumya always as the favourite student of Hathurusingha. Now when Hathurusingha is not at the helm of Bangladesh, question was raised whether Soumya would enjoy the same facilities if he can’t make enough runs.

Soumya Sarkar’s reply was straight: “If I play well, I will be in the national team. I don’t know who likes or dislikes me. I haven’t had any headache with that. People may talk behind me because in a class a teacher won’t like everyone which is very natural. So who is disliked by teacher, he may talk behind.”

“If I can’t play well, I can’t make the cut in the national team. A student will then be favoured by the teacher when he will be admitted into the school. I have to go through a tough exam to admit into the school. I think since I did well in the exam, the coach started liking me.”

Soumya’s answer may irk his haters but statistics suggested that despite the poor form in 2017, he was the highest run getter for Bangladesh in T20 Internationals. And at the same time he was at the top five scorers in Test and ODI cricket.

“Still I think I can’t play the way I wanted to play. People want me to score big what I can’t do. That’s why they didn’t notice me scoring,” he said.

“What was the problem was that I can’t convert my start to big one. Most of the time, I was dismissed in 30s or 40s. If I got 50, people could notice me.”

Like his aggressive batting, he was in attacking mode when his attention was drawn to Hathurusingha’s advantage to know the strength and weakness of Bangladesh, something what it is believed to be exploited when Sri Lanka will tour Bangladesh in next month.

While the other players and team management gave statement that they were worried about it, Soumya said like the way Hathurusingha knows everything about Bangladeshi players, they are also aware that what type of tactics he may tinker with.

“It is fine he knows everything, we may change our strategy. But at the same time, I know as to how he thinks about the game, the way he designs the game plan and what could be his possible strategy,” he remarked.