Leg-spinner Jubair Hossain on Friday said he always had the belief that his time will come to showcase his talent in shorter-format of the game despite being over looked earlier in the domestic competition. Abahani Limited kept Jubair for the ongoing season of Dhaka Premier League despite he did not feature regularly for them in the previous season and he repaid the faith by picking up six wickets in the opening game against Kalabagan Krira Chakra on Friday.
Though he featured regularly in the Test squad and even played one-day international and Twenty20 internationals, somehow he could not fit in the domestic circuit.
His bowling approach was put under question time and again in the domestic arena where he is often labelled as a longer-version cricketer due to his inability to maintain a regular line and length consistently.
As a result, domestic teams resisted from taking risk despite his ability to deliver all sorts of leg-spinning tricks, one of the toughest arts in cricket, to bamboozle even the batsmen of top flight.
Jubair kept aside all this rejection and kept on thriving to be better prepared so that he can shine when he eventually gets a chance to show his talent in the domestic circuit.
A four-wicket haul in the practice match against Prime Bank looked to have given him the confidence to the Abahani organisers to include him in their starting XI and his 6-34 in the DPL opener looked to have raised his chances to feature regularly in the traditional 50-over tournament.
‘I knew my time will come,’ Jubair told reporters at the Fatullah Stadium on Friday after his superb show.
‘To be honest I had very little opportunities in domestic arena.
‘I always try to do well whenever I get a chance and felt happy to contribute today [Friday] as it relieved a lot of pressure on me,’ he said.
Jubair said national coach Chandika Hathurusinghe and all his national team-mates never lost their confidence on him when he was unable to make it into a side and it remained a motivating factor for him.
‘They always used to inspire me’, said the leg-spinner.
‘Sometimes you fail while sometimes you succeed, but for me the chances were very limited.’
Jubair said he was happy to bowl according to his plans and though there were some full toss it hardly mattered as he was more concerned not to bowl short.
Jubair felt content as he outfoxed seasoned campaigner, Zimbabwean Hamilton Masakadza with a googlie but at the same time he also felt that some loose balls are inevitable from a leg-spinner, who always tries different things.
‘I knew Masakadza have some problem with my googlie so I decided to trap him with that’, added Jubair.
‘A leg-spinner can always bowl a few full tosses but I emphasised on bowling nothing short.
‘I did with the ball what I wanted today.’
-With New Age input
