Ever since his introduction to Bangladesh cricket, left-handed batsman Mominul Haque, has had a promising run. After the conclusion of the recent tours of Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, Mominul returned home knowing that he has to improve his batting.
In modern cricket, any weakness or limitation of a particular player is quickly exposed by the opposition.
In Mominul’s case, it was the short-ball.
The 21-year-old batsman realised that he needed to work on his skills in order to negotiate better with the short-pitched deliveries after making his international debut.
The little man’s susceptibility to rising deliveries propelled the middle-order batsman to go for a two-hour indoor batting session at Mirpur with former national fielding coach Mohammad Salahuddin on Thursday.
Mominul turned to his mentor Salahuddin immediately upon his arrival from Malaysia on Wednesday to help him minimise his shortcomings.
The batsman had been a student since his early childhood days at the Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Prothisthan.
‘I am not comfortable with the short-ball coming at me waist height,’ Mominul told New Age on Thursday after the indoor session.
‘Due to me being short, the bowlers will try to attack in this area so I arranged this session to learn some specific drills in order to cope up with those deliveries,’ said Mominul, who hails from the beach town of Cox’s Bazar.
‘This realisation came only after the Zimbabwe series because on the subcontinent wickets the ball hardly makes you struggle as much as it does outside of it,’ he said.
‘I was quite comfortable in Sri Lanka but that was not the case in Zimbabwe,’ he added.
Mominul made his Test debut against Sri Lanka in April and scored two back-to-back half-centuries to give an indication of his talent but he could not quite live up to his billing on the successive tour of Zimbabwe where he seemed to struggle against the short-ball in the Test matches.
In the following one-day international series, he was promoted up the batting order but could not translate any of the innings into a big score.
‘It is true that, compared to Sri Lanka, I struggled in Zimbabwe but that’s how it goes,’ said Mominul.
‘I feel that it will only help me grow as a cricketer if my drawbacks are pointed out,’ he added.
‘Unless this deficiency is minimised it will be difficult for me to succeed,’ he added.
His mentor Salahuddin added that Mominul has yet to find a perfect balance while playing on the back-foot and that is causing the entire problem.
‘His [Mominul] body balance is not perfect while playing the short ball. Often his head moves towards the off-stump line rather than going behind the ball which is causing him the problem,’ said Salahuddin.
‘Another thing is he tends to play the ball with a firm bottom hand rather than playing it softly and working it through to the leg-side,’ he added.
‘Momiul also spent a large amount of time working on yorkers onto his pads that had been found to be one of his major areas that needed to be honed,’ added Salahuddin.
‘He needs to transfer his body weight as well and use the full follow through of the bat to get the maximum from these deliveries,’ said Salahuddin.
‘I have given him some specific drills that will help him overcome these shortcomings,’ he added.
-With New Age input
