Bangladeshi cricket has a culture of adding various adjectives next to a cricketer’s name when he plays well. Especially the journalists added different nicknames to the names of the cricketers. After the third ODI win against Zimbabwe, the question was whether Afif Hossain Dhrubar could be added to the name of ‘Crisis Man’.
Mahmudullah Riyad’s name has long been associated with silent killer, crisis man due to his great finishing skills. He is not at his best now. Afif has been playing that role very well for the last few series. The latest example of this was his unbeaten 85 off 81 balls in the last ODI against Zimbabwe.
However, Bangladesh team captain Tamim Iqbal has forbidden Afif to raise expectations with any title. Although Tamim did not say it directly, let Afif be like Afif. While expecting a bright future for Afif, Tamim is reluctant to rush him.
In this context, the ODI captain said, “Don’t give him a name yet.” It happens a little faster. He has a unique quality that not many people have. If you look at today’s match or the second match, we were under pressure. But he (batting) took the match away from the opponent.
After losing 4 wickets for the team’s 120 runs, Afif entered the field in the third ODI. From there, he almost single-handedly pulled the team to 256 runs. Afif added 49 runs off 57 balls with Mahmudullah Riyad at the wicket. Then Mehdi Hasan added another 33 runs off 47 balls with Miraj. And that is the fighting capital of Bangladesh.
Keeping this young batsman in check, Tamim said, ‘One thing is, such a player will often get out while doing the same thing (style of play). Then we or you may say, what did it do! I don’t want him to lose that quality, he wants to bat aggressively and that’s a great quality. I know he’s going to have a great career, but it’s a little too early to give him a name right now.”
