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Bangladesh need Mominul back in form for Australia Tests

Roar Guru
10th July, 2017
6

As the contractual dispute between the Australian players and their cricket authority seems to be heading for a stalemate, Bangladesh are following the events closely.

The Aussies are scheduled to tour Bangladesh from late August and already the series has generated quite a bit of interest.

For the Tigers, it’s a rare opportunity to face the mighty Aussies in a five-day fixture. And especially for a young man from Cox’s Bazar, this series provides a great opportunity to get his international career back on track.

Mominul Haque, the young left-handed batsman, made his Test debut against Sri Lanka at Galle in March 2013. He scored a solid 55 in his only innings of a high-scoring match.

Mominul followed this with another fifty at Colombo. Further success came in the next season – less than a year after his Test debut he became the most consistent batsman in the Bangladesh Test squad.

He started the 2013-14 season with 181 against New Zealand at Chittagong, and followed this with 126* at Dhaka. Overall he scored 376 runs in the two-match series, with the extraordinary average of 188.

In February 2014, Mominul scored another unbeaten hundred, this time against Sri Lanka at Chittagong. At the end of the 2013-14 season, after seven Tests and 13 innings, Mominul’s Test average was 75.5. Don Bradman still seemed quite a distance apart, but his record was comparable to those of the best of the rest.

There was nothing flashy about Mominul’s batting; batting at No.4, he just quietly built his innings. Like most short left-handers he scored regularly in the gully-point region. He didn’t possess the elegance of David Gower or Brian Lara; he was more of an accumulator of runs like Allan Border or Larry Gomes.

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A quiet character, he mostly remained away from the spotlight despite his phenomenal success. His face didn’t appear in billboards like Tamim’s or Shakib’s, but he was an integral part of our Test team and he seemed destined to become a great Test batsman.

Mominul didn’t do very well in the short tour to the Windies in September, but when returning to his favourite ground at Chittagong in November he smashed 131* against a hapless Zimbabwe attack. He was still averaging over 70 and his record at Chittagong stood out – 181 and 22* (versus New Zealand), 13 and 100* (versus Sri Lanka), 48 and 131* (versus Zimbabwe).

Yet after two and half years Mominul’s average is 46.88 from 22 Tests. He hasn’t added to his four Test tons. In fact, things went so bad that after scoring seven and five at Galle last March, Mominul was dropped for the next Test. And although the selectors have already made it clear that he would be back for the team this season, the question mark remains whether he will ever be able to fulfil his early promise.

village boys playing cricket during the sunset in Bangladesh

(Photo: Eram/Photocrowd.com)

Before considering his future prospects, an analysis of his past record is required. It is not uncommon for many young players of the current era to show promise as a Test cricketer before engaging themselves too much in the limited-overs game and thus failing to build a Test career.

This, however, is not evident in Mominul’s case. Although he made his ODI debut before his Test debut, he never had much success in the 50 or 20-over game. The arrival of Sabbir and Soumya put him out of the picture in shorter forms.

Mominul’s last ODI was at the MCG against Sri Lanka in the 2015 World Cup. There, he was out for one. In fact, his only notable contribution in the match was dropping Kumar Sangakkara, helping the Sri Lankan maestro to an unbeaten hundred. Everyone in Bangladesh sees him as a Test match specialist, and that’s why his recent failures in Test cricket have hurt us more.

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An interesting fact is that his first three hundreds came while batting at No.4. However, the failure of other batsmen forced him into the No.3 slot, where he has scored just one ton.

Still, this doesn’t seem a big factor, certainly not while playing in the sub continent. (All but four of his 22 Tests have been on the subcontinent.)

Most of the time, the pitches on the subcontinent are slow with low bounce, and plenty of runs are there for a batsman who is ready to be patient. It doesn’t matter whether Mominul is batting at No.3 or 4. Virat Kohli goes at No.4 in Test matches, giving the No.3 spot to Cheteshwar Pujara.

Mominul’s batting needs some technical improvement. In his early Tests, he scored freely square of the offside. Obviously by now, the opposition teams are fully aware of his strong points. In recent matches, the opposition teams bowl to him with a packed offside field, making it very difficult for him to score.

Mominul has been caught at times in the gully region. He has also played a few shots across the line of delivery, in a bid to score in the leg side. This can be risky and it’s no surprise that three of his last four Test dismissals have been LBWs. Mominul certainly needs to add to his array of strokes, especially his leg-side shots.

As things stand, we are eagerly looking forward to a good performance from him in the Australia series, particularly at his favourite venue, Chittagong. Mominul needs runs to boost his confidence before the difficult tour to South Africa.

As previously mentioned, Mominul has played little cricket outside the sub continent and I expect the South African fast bowlers to test him with plenty of short-pitch deliveries outside the off stump.

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Although Bangladesh haven’t won as many Test matches as we would have liked, at least the likes of Shakib, Mushfiqur and Mahmudullah have given our middle order some stability.

However, just like every team, we need someone to perform consistently in the No.3 slot. Mominul has excellent temperament and, right now in Bangladesh, there is no one better qualified than him to bat in that position in Test matches. Hopefully we see him return to his best.

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