'Not my best knock'

He was criticised after the ODI series. The way Arafat Sunny repeatedly duped him in limited overs made even his most ardent fans doubt him. However, all those fears were alleviated after the start of the Test series. The cogwheels started churning again and Mohammad Hafeez hammered his way back to form.

His double hundred yesterday took his overall tally to 642 runs in the last three Tests. He has had scores of 96, 101,197, 24 and 224. Hafeez, who got out in an unlikely fashion yesterday -- he was caught at leg-slip while attempting a sweep off leg-stump delivery -- admitted that he was relieved after the innings.

"I was under pressure after the ODI series and I knew I had to do something to regain my confidence and I tried hard. There was a demand for the team to play a positive innings and I am happy that I was able to do the best for my side," a composed Hafeez told reporters at the post-day press conference in Khulna.

While this was Hafeez's first double hundred he didn't rate it as his best innings.

"This is not really the best one but you can say that it is one of the best I can remember. And a double hundred is always special for any batsman in the world," he said.

"I am not here to prove myself to anyone… I know that in the past I had to prove myself after every one or two matches. But today I prefer doing the most for my team and not myself," he added.

A great planner of the game, Hafeez revealed that one of their plans was to take the attack to Shakib Al Hasan, the most threatening of Bangladesh's bowlers.

"As a team we rate him very highly, since we know that he is one of the key factors in their team. But we wanted to minimise the Shakib impact by putting pressure on him. He was trying a little bit too much so I had gone with an attacking mindset. I didn't want to leave anything and tried to cash in on every ball and that worked for me against him," said Hafeez.

"At a certain stage they bowled well, applied some good technique and we had to adjust accordingly. They bowled well in patches with planning, but I stayed positive and attacked. That helped me to score, which helped my team strengthen their grip on the game," he added.

Hafeez further said that the visitors would aim for a lead of at least 300 runs before the end of the first innings.