Bangladesh all-rounder Mehedi Hasan Miraz gave full credit to his batting partner Afif Hossain Dhrubo. COURTESY
Bangladesh all-rounder Mehedi Hasan Miraz gave full credit to his batting partner Afif Hossain Dhrubo after their epic partnership brought back the sweet Cardiff memory, where Shakib Al Hasan-Mahmudullah Riyad partnership had defied the overwhelming odds as well.
In Bangladesh cricket history, the Cardiff comeback in 2017 is often regarded as the greatest one. Shakib-Riyad stand had helped the Tigers to reach the Champions Trophy semi-finals then and from now onwards, without a shadow of doubt, Afif-Miraz's memorable turnaround against Afghanistan in the first ODI of the three-match series would be pronounced with the same vivacity. "Afif played a brilliant knock. If I am true to my words, then I must say I got the confidence from his batting," Miraz said during the post-match presentation ceremony tonight. "I was also nervous initially but he [Afif] told me: Miraz bhai, we can play ball by ball, think about one over first, then see what would happen. "Afif gave me confidence by saying that we think later about whether we would win the match or not but we could take the match in a certain position," Miraz added. From six down with just 45 on the board after 11.2 overs, it needed something miraculous from Bangladesh to turn the game around in their favour and the two batters made it happen by putting together a record partnership of 174 runs to steer Bangladesh to a four-wicket victory.
"Self-belief is important. If we have the confidence that we can win the match, then we will definitely win that match. There is nothing which human beings cannot do, you just need the confidence," Miraz opined. Miraz became the player-of-the-match for his unbeaten 81 but it sounded like his player-of-the-match was Afif Hossain, who scored an unbeaten 93. Not only was the partnership Bangladesh's highest seventh-wicket stand in ODI history but it also became the second highest seventh-wicket partnership in ODI history, just a few runs behind Jos Butler and Adil Rashid's 177-run stand in 2015 against New Zealand. Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Bangladesh's most successful captain in ODI history, was not far from the truth when he posted the following in his Facebook account after the game ended tonight: "Playing after 7 months, again prove that we are the best in the format."
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