Najmul dominates, Najmul thrills

When Najmul Hossain Shanto walked out to the pitch on Wednesday, Bangladesh could smell some trouble. Tamim Iqbal was ruled out of the Test and Zakir Hasan had just gotten out right after opening his account.

However, there were no signs of worry as the left-handed batter started smashing the Afghanistan bowlers left, right, and centre straight away.

His boundaries, mostly in front of the cover, were full of authority and his straight drives full of dominance.

It’s not like he did not edge a few. He did. And he was bowled a little bit before he was actually out, saved courtesy of a no ball.

By the time he actually got out trying to clear the mid-wicket fence, Najmul had scored a brilliant 146 runs off 175 balls, hitting 23 fours and two sixes.

He reached his fifty off 58 balls and took 60 more to reach his third century in Tests and first at home, which was also the second-quickest in the history of the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium.

Najmul finally stopped on 146, his second-best Test score, although many would assume that this end was premature, and on a batting haven and against an inexperienced Afghan bowling attack, he could have easily made it longer if he did not try to keep going at the bowlers.

The batter himself though, was not one of them as he said he was happy with the runs he scored.

“Yes, this innings could have been bigger. If I get the chance the next day, I will surely try to make them bigger,” he said in the press conference after the day’s play.

While Najmul has been on a purple patch across formats since the 2022 T20 World Cup, the situation had been quite different prior to that as the batter was constantly criticised for underperforming.

“I always believed I was on the right track. I trained properly. But the results were not coming. When you don’t score runs, you feel sad. But it’s true that I did not think much about what was being said around me. I tried to improve my weaknesses. The results did not come back then but now they are. Let’s see how long I can keep this up,” Najmul decided to look at it glass half-full.

After reaching triple figures, the left-handed batter produced a flying kiss, one he said was not dedicated to anybody.

“When I don’t score runs I can’t celebrate. When I score, I feel like celebrating. It (the flying kiss) is not for anybody, I just do it because I like doing it,” he said.

Najmul will definitely hope to produce more flying kisses in the years coming, and so will Bangladesh.