BSS, Sylhet :
Opener Tamim Iqbal insisted that his record-breaking 158 came against Zimbabwe in the second ODI with the same approach and mindset with which he has been batting recently.
“To be honest my approach was same and I didn’t change the mindset also. I was batting the way I have been batting recently. Nothing has been changed,” he said here on Wednesday.
The epic knock at the moment when his batting approach was criticized vehemently, preciously for his slow approach which critics said hurt the team’s cause often.
But the senior opener was praised enormously for his career-best ODI score, which is also the highest score by a Bangladeshi batsman.
Tamim’s 158 came off just 136 deliveries with the help of 20 fours and three sixes before he completed the century off 106 balls. It was his third quickest century in his career, an indication that most of his century came below 100 strike rate.
Exactly the critics and fans questioned about his strike rate, something which became louder and louder and he was under severe scrutiny. Even though batting consultant Neil McKenzie backed Tamim for a big score, he indirectly indicated that Tamim should play in more aggressive fashion.
When situation was such, Tamim remained adamant that he did nothing exceptional to change his game rather he stuck to his same process, he was going through.
“If you notice you will see I didn’t charge any bowlers before my 100. I didn’t also defend anything. I got two/three more boundaries from the beginning. There is one or two balls which came to my toe and I flicked it for four. I played all cricketing shots and the thing is that I found the gap, which I didn’t find in the last several matches,” he said.
“However since my strike rate was almost 100 during the 100, everyone thinks I changed the approach. But nothing was changed. I just followed the same process as I have been doing .”
He also ruled out that he did anything different in the match in a bid to end his run-draught that eluded him specifically from the World Cup.
“I didn’t do anything different in the match. If some different things I tried, I tried it in the net. I tried not to get out in the net. There were some little adjustment that I did to tune my batting and for the betterment of my game.”
