Mahmudul rues missing out on a big hundred

Bangladesh opener Mahmudul Hasan expressed disappointment about not being able to turn a promising knock into a big score on the opening day of the Sylhet Test against New Zealand. Mahmudul scored a fine 86 but New Zealand hit back to keep the hosts to 310/9 with Glenn Phillips taking 4 for 53.

Incidentally, Mahmudul was also set for a hundred in his last Test, against Afghanistan, before departing for 76. "I don't get the chance to get set every day and I missed two innings [to make it big] and in the coming days will try to do better," Mahmudul told reporters after the opening day's play.

"Certainly [disappointing] because you see I had the chance to play a big innings but unfortunately missed it because as an opener you won't get the chance to get set and score big but today it came and unfortunately I missed it.

"Everyone got set but no one could build up the innings and that is something that we regret. We planned that it would be good if we could score 350 or 380 runs but unfortunately it didn't happen," he said.

Among the batters that couldn't make the most after getting in was Bangladesh skipper Najmul Hossain, who hit Phillips for three sixes and then fell attempting an encore. Mahmudul backed the skipper's decision to take on the part-time offspinner.

"Look he [Phillips] was an occasional bowler and if we don't charge him and he starts bowling well, in that case main bowlers could have put pressure on us and so we planned to take on the occasional bowlers but unfortunately we got out playing bad shots. I won't say that [it was judgmental errors] rather the bowler was lucky that he got wickets with bad deliveries," he said.

"Shanto [Najmul] bhai usually bats in this manner and he was playing according to his plan. Look a batsman does not get the chance to get set all the time and we got out scoring 30 or 40 runs everyone will be disappointed. Naturally he was disappointed but that happened against a full-toss ball and it was unfortunate, but that will not happen every day."

Mahmudul said that the pitch wasn't an easy one to bat on given the consistent turn on offer from the first session. However, there was still value for a batter trusting his defence. "The wicket is not that easy as it looks because the ball turns at time," he said.

"If you can trust on your defense it is easy but everyone has different planning, like Shanto bhai was playing his natural game, I am playing my natural game while Sohan bhai was playing his natural game. So everyone has different game plans.

"We have 300 runs in the scoreboard and we are in a good position. Now we will try to restrict the opponent within the runs we scored and with the quality spinners that we have... we can bowl them out for low scores. The wicket is slow and we are giving priority to our spinners and if the spinners bowl we can get them out cheaply," he said.