'Felt like a 100-year effort'

When compared to his previous knocks, Mominul Haque's 80 at Khulna yesterday wasn't exactly the smoothest.

The batsman himself perhaps best described his innings after stumps yesterday: "I may have scored just 80, but it felt like I batted for a 100 years."

However, it was the sort of innings that the diminutive batsman needed under his belt in order to regain confidence. Having gone through a difficult World Cup campaign and failing to find a place in the ODI side for a while, Mominul needed to brush aside the lean patch and start afresh in a format that he averages a mammoth 63.90 with the bat in.  "I try to stay mentally positive. I don't listen to what is being said. I will do what I have to do and not worry about the consequences," Mominul told reporters in the post-match press conference with regards to the difficult last few months.

"I am playing a Test match after four months. I try to remember the routines of the previous game and follow it. If it goes haywire, it becomes difficult," he added.

There were times when the left-hander looked streaky on the two-paced wicket at the Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium in Khulna. He was dropped a couple of times. He looked comfortable when he merely defended the deliveries on the back-foot. However, it was the acceleration that was the problem.

In a bid to up the run-rate, the left-hander was compelled to even play the reverse-sweep, a shot he generally doesn't depend on.

"We didn't set to bat slowly. It is quite hard to score on this wicket. It keeps low, comes to the bat late. You can survive but scoring runs is difficult. Shakib [Al Hasan] bhai and Tamim [Iqbal] bhai are attacking in ODIs but even they couldn't force the pace.

"We would have lost more wickets had we forced the issue. It is better to stay at the wicket, which will be good for the team," explained the left-hander.

"We can get wickets if we bowl stump to stump. I think 300 runs is enough, if you look at the wicket. Today they gave very few bad balls. Each and every bowler was hard to tackle," Mominul added.

The top-order batsman, who was dismissed with the last ball of the day, said he had a lapse of concentration.

"We would have been in a better position had I not been dismissed. But I still feel we are in a good position. A wicket at this late stage is a bonus to them. I played that ball quite poorly. Maybe I was a bit casual. Sometimes the mind wanders when you are out in the middle for a long time. I think I got out because I had a lapse in concentration," said Mominul.