Mushfiqur Rahim’s 125 off 127 balls against Sri Lanka in the latest ODI showed his class act of batting in this format as the right hander was like an one-man army in that innings, where majority of the other batsmen from both the teams failed to score big on a relatively slow wicket.
Mushfiq was brilliant in the first ODI as well where he scored 84 off 87 deliveries with four fours and one six.
That innings was also flawless until he tried to score a boundary by attempting a reverse sweep, which was eventually caught at short third man.
In both the matches, Mushfiq formed an important partnership with Mahmudullah, which prevented Bangladesh batting from collapsing, and eventually those partnerships on both the occasions brought the Tigers back with a challenging total in the end.
One of the impressive sides of Mushfiq’s two innings in the ongoing ODI series is his strike rate.
The right-hander scored with 96.55 strike rate in the first match, while his strike rate in the second was 98.42.
His execution of rotating strike regularly and keep ticking the scoreboard along on slow pitches and challenging conditions were also eye-catching.
Pitches in both the games were not tailor-made for batting, rather it was relatively slow, like a typical Mirpur wicket.
But Mushfiq’s innings build-up, adapting with the conditions and then going for the big shots in the later stages, were brilliant in both the knocks.
In the second innings, where he scored the magnificent hundred, Mushfiq struck only one boundary in his first fifty-run phase, and later hammered nine more in the late stage of his knock.
That is a good example as to how to build your ODI innings, even when your team are under pressure.
With 125-run innings Tuesday, Mushfiq’s number of centuries in ODIs is now eight.
And all of his eight centuries have come while batting at No 4 position in the 50-over format.
Mushfiq's eight centuries at No 4 came from 104 innings, from 2007 till date.
He is in fifth position in the list of highest number of centuries scored by a batsman who batted at No 4.
The other four are Ross Taylor (19 from 109 innings), AB de Villiers (15 from 125 innings), Aravinda de Silva (10 from 197 innings) and Mahela Jayawardene (9 from 219 innings).
Mushfiq’s performance in the last few years has portrayed how he has changed himself into a more consistent performer and became the backbone of the Bangladesh middle-order.
If we consider his performance in ODIs in the last five years, Mushfiq scored 458 runs from 13 innings in 2017 with an average of 45.8, 770 from 19 innings in 2018 with an average of 55, 754 from 18 innings in 2018 with an average of 50.26, 74 from two innings in 2020 with an average of 37.
And in the year 2021 so far, Mushfiq has scored 379 runs from eight innings with an average of 63.16.
This stat is just in ODIs.
But if we look at Mushfiq’s overall performance in all three formats - Tests, ODIs and T20s - altogether in a calendar year from 2017 till date, the right-hander is averaging 45.07 in 2017, 40.41 in 2018, 40.19 in 2019, 98 in 2020 and 54.25 in 2021.
Mushfiq is known to be a sheer hard worker even in his off days to maintain his fitness, or practicing extra sessions, and that has been reflected in his performance in recent years.
Mushfiq has established himself as a role model for the youngsters out there in the country who want to become professional cricketers.
But the matter of fact is, not only for the youngsters, Mushfiq can also be a great example for the batsmen within the current Bangladesh squad as well regarding how to prepare and elevate individual performance and consistency through proper dedication and continuous hard work.