Muhamudullah Riyad, the youngest of three brothers, was brought up in a cricketing environment as his elder Emadullah played in the local cricket league of Mymensingh, who was also his first coach. He had won the man of the match award in the Nirman School Cricket final in 2000 where he was spotted by a local coach Sadek Hossain, who played for Victoria SC in the Dhaka league. Sadek took him to Alok Chakrabarty, a pace bowler of Biman who was then conducting a camp for the Under-15 cricketers of Mymensingh, and told him to give Mahmudullah a chance to practise in the nets. His performance in the nets allowed him to play in two practice match where he excelled both with bat and ball that got him a ticket to play at the Under-15 Asia Cup in Malaysia. He was also a part of the Under-19 World Cup team in Dhaka in 2004. He started to play for Kathalbagan in the second division in 2002 and got a chance to play in an under -19 trial match where he scored a century but yet could not get into the team. Jalal Ahmed Chowdhury, the then cricket coach of Dhanmondi Club, saw a potentiality in his tidy off-spin and powerful batting and picked him to play for the club in the Premier League in 2003. But the real breakthrough came in 2007 when he played for the Bangladesh Academy against the Pakistan Academy side when he got five wickets in a four-day match and also picked up five in the final of the Tri-nation Tournament, also involving Sri Lankan Academy. Though he was never a regular choice after making his ODI debut in 2007 and was dropped after the first series. He scored four consecutive centuries in the national league to stake a claim for a national call-up. But he cemented his place in the national side after the West Indies tour where he took eight wickets in his debut Test and since then he has played in all forms of cricket for the Tigers until he was dropped for the second one-day against Zimbabwe. ‘I thank all the coaches, especially Khaled Mahmud, who have kept faith with me and want to repay them with my performance,’ said Mahmudullah. — New Age
