Focused Shakib shelves emotions in marathon knock

Shakib Al Hasan registered his top score in Test cricket on day two in Wellington. The best part of his 217, he said later, was that he "overcame different situations" to get there.

The first of those situations involved dealing with being offered a life late on day one: he was dropped on 4 by Mitchell Santner, and went to stumps unbeaten on 5. The mis-hit that caused that drop - an uncontrolled pull - made Shakib contemplative, and he had a chat with his wife about it back at the team hotel.

"Yesterday when [Santner] dropped my catch, I started talking to my wife who is understanding cricket these days," Shakib said with a smile. "I told her that maybe I can go on to get a good score, since big players make use of these chances. I was just thinking about it."

That he had been thinking about his batting was obvious in his demeanour on the second day. He hardly showed any emotion, focusing all his energy on his batting, making his way to a maiden double-century, becoming only the sixth batsman from the subcontinent to hit a two-hundred in New Zealand.

He overcame several hairy moments - more of those "different situations" - on his way there: he was pinged on the thigh by Tim Southee; he was struck by a throw while completing a single; Ross Taylor dropped him at backward point on 189. But he just kept on going, piling up the biggest partnership in Bangladesh's Test history, with Mushfiqur Rahim for company.

It wasn't a scrappy effort though, and the innings had all the hallmarks of a typical Shakib effort. The 75 singles he ran were spread evenly throughout the 276 balls he faced, but he also struck enough boundaries to smother the New Zealand bowling attack. His 31 fours was another record for Bangladesh, beating Mominul Haque's 27 during his 181 against New Zealand in Chittagong in 2013. He also tackled the short ball very well, particularly when ducking under or weaving away from the line of the bouncer.

Speaking on facing up to the short stuff, Shakib said his aim was to not get stuck on the back foot. "What if he slipped in a yorker?," Shakib asked. "We follow the rule of always pressing forward to a short ball. It is not easy when you have one bouncer after the other being aimed at you; you go backwards automatically. [But] this mindset makes it easier to play bouncers."

Shakib said he enjoyed breaking the records he did today. He was caught off guard, though, when he saw Tamim Iqbal applaud him from the dressing room after he had crossed 206, which was the previous best score by a Bangladesh batsman in Test cricket.

"It was great to hear about all the records we were breaking [on the PA system]. It inspired us to make the partnership bigger. [But] I thought Tamim's score was 214 not 206; when I ran that single, I saw Tamim was clapping and I thought, oh, this is the highest score."

Mushfiqur, who made 159 and at times looked to be the more dominant partner, noticed that Shakib had reined in his emotions today. When Shakib reached 100 and 200 it was Mushfiqur who started celebrating first, from the non-striker's end, before Shakib raised his bat.

"I never thought he was too troubled during his innings; he coped with everything and survived everything," Mushfiqur said. "But there is no emotion. He didn't even want to raise his bat and it didn't seem like he was scoring a hundred or 200."

Still, Mushfiqur said he enjoyed the partnership immensely. "I love to bat with him. He doesn't talk too much, just gives little hints and that helps me all the time. There were a couple of hiccups in our running between the wickets today, but that can happen. We did well for our nation."