Home ›› 25 May 2022 ›› Sport
Watching Liton Kumar Das is always a delight for all the senses. His batting will soothe your eyes, the sound of his sweet timing will play a symphony in your earbuds, and sometimes you will shiver in anger at the premature end of his innings, which might produce some unpleasant words through your vocal cords.
That was Liton before he met Ashwell Prince, the former batting coach of Bangladesh. Earlier, most of his innings spanned as long as a TV commercial runs, a few flashy moves and gone. But the new version of Liton is a full-length feature film. It has action, drama, and sometimes tragedy.
After playing his best Test innings so far, 141 under tremendous pressure against Sri Lanka at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka, Liton also handled the press very well as he did in the middle. This is not the same old Liton who was a bit arrogant and disorganised. He chose his words perfectly, like the way he played his pull shots against the barrage of short balls by the pacers of Sri Lanka.
In a nutshell, this is LKD 2. O. refined and reinforced.
Liton was unwilling to share his trade secrets but told the media that he had brought some changes to his practice method.
“I have made changes in my practice method. I can’t explain it to you as you might not understand. It is very difficult to tell what changes I have made. I want to keep it to myself,” he said on Tuesday.
He also said that former batting coach Prince had a huge impact on him.
“Prince told me to stay as long as possible in the crease. Now I know the pattern of Test cricket. Now I can understand how to prolong an inning. What he taught me has worked very well. I am still following his suggestions,” said Liton.
Liton has also given up thinking about all the trolls and criticisms and accepted the reality of a cricketer’s life.
“Criticism is inevitable. People will praise you when you do well, they will criticise you when you don’t. It is the same thing. They want me to perform, so these things no longer bother me. I am focused on my job, on my training. I am trying to keep myself well. If I don’t try hard enough, I feel bad. I am just doing my job. The result is up to fate,” he said.
The calm in his mind is also being seen in his batting. So far, Liton has scored three Test centuries, and all of them came in the last six months. The first one was against Pakistan in Chattogram in November 2021, then against New Zealand in Christchurch, and the latest one against Sri Lanka in Dhaka.
Liton, a former student of BKSP, first broke into the scene in the 2014-15 season of the Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League, where he scored 686 runs and became the second-highest scorer.
Finally, Liton earned his first national team cap in a Test against India after the 2015 World Cup. But since then, he was often dubbed as a derailed talent because of his inability to convert the fine starts into healthy innings.
But now, Liton has become a symbol of stability. The most important thing is that Liton is not feeling content. He has a hunger for runs but has stopped watching the numbers.
“Earlier, I used to look at my stats, and found myself on the back foot. My challenge was to move forward from there. But now I have stopped seeing stats. I only think about going forward, don’t know how far I can make,” said the right-handed batsman.
The new version of Liton is full of confidence, which shows when he plays his majestic pull shot.
“I think I am playing the pull shot well for the last one and half years. I am in control. I have the firm belief that if the bowlers bowl a lot of short balls, I can score. I played with that confidence,” he said.
