Liton attains career-high

Liton Kumar Das is harvesting the benefits of his purple patch as he moved to a career-high place in the ICC Men’s Test Player’s Ranking updated on Wednesday.

The wicket-keeper batsman scored his second Test hundred in the recently concluded match against New Zealand in Christchurch, he also played a knock of 86 runs at Bay Oval where Bangladesh have beaten the Blackcaps.

Liton Das is up 17 places to a career-best 15th position with 196 runs while Mominul Haque (moved up eight places to 37th) and Najmul Hossain (up 21 places to 87th) have also made notable progress among the batsmen.

Liton is now at 43rd place in the ICC Men’s ODI rankings and his place is even lower in the T20i rankings where he is in 72nd place, but when it comes to Test cricket, he is far more comfortable.

Nazmul Abedeen Fahim, Cricket Advisor at the BKSP and childhood coach of Liton told The Business Post that the reason behind his success is batting position,

“Limited overs cricket is a game of keeping the scoreboard ticking. As an opener, he might be in some sort of hurry or under pressure to score runs quickly. In Test matches, he can play at his own pace”, he said on Wednesday.

Fahim also said that the new ball also plays a role

“New ball obviously travels faster, so facing the new ball as an opener is a bit difficult that batting in the middle though he faces the second new ball in Test matches.”.

Despite being an opener, the last time Liton scored a half-century was back in March 2020, his poor show fetched a lot of criticism during the ICC T20 World Cup but in Test cricket, he has been one of the most consistent performers in the last one year.

Fahim believes that with the current state of mind, Liton can also transcend this sublime form into the limited-overs game,

“He could be the mainstay of our batting; in limited-overs, we must find a suitable place for him so that he can bat at his own pace. Not too deep, but somewhere up in the top order”, he told The Business Post.

Fast bowler Ebadot Hossain, who picked seven wickets against New Zealand to ensure Bangladesh’s first victory over the Blackcaps has progressed 17 places to 88th with a total of nine wickets in the series.