How Mehidy found his allrounder groove

Mehidy Hasan Miraz charges towards Umran Malik, making a bit of room as he laces the ball through extra cover and mid-off. Two deliveries later, he repeats the dose, though this time with more of a stand-and-deliver blast: he shapes to play a scoop but then switches to the tip in the end, and moves to his new highest score in ODIs.

Three days before, in the first game of the series, he had chipped in with a tenth-wicket stand of 51 runs with Mustafizur Rahman to beat India by one wicket. That was an unlikely turnaround; surely, there couldn't be an encore?

Two big sixes take him to 97, then a two over mid-off and a single to long-on take him to a first white-ball century. Mehidy soaks in the applause, having rescued Bangladesh from a miserable 69 for 6, when it seemed unlikely they would last the full 50 overs, let alone get to 271 for 7. He became only the second batter to score an ODI hundred from No. 8 or lower.

Mehidy said he did not think about his hundred until he found himself on 99 with one ball left in the innings. His focus till then had been on getting Bangladesh to a respectable total after their collapse. "I was telling [Mahmudullah] Riyad bhai that we have nothing to lose from this position," he said. "Either of us could get out. We might even have got bowled out before reaching 100 runs [from 69 for 6]. I told him, 'Let's drag the innings to 150 or 200 runs.' I figured that both of us should have a clear mindset, play every shot with commitment. I kept this in mind when batting in that innings. I kept things positive and clear in my mind."

Those performances earned him a batting spot one place higher than his usual in Bangladesh's next ODI series, against England a couple of months later. He also found a place in the T20I side, where he wasn't a shoo-in even when he was doing well in ODIs. The hundred against India won the ESPNcricinfo Award for best men's ODI innings of 2022, beating performances from the likes of Ishan Kishan and Travis Head. Mehidy also won a place in the ICC's ODI team of the year.

It has been just reward for a cricketer whose career hasn't all been smooth sailing after his 19-wicket burst in his first Test series, against England. Save for some bright spots against West Indies in his matches against them, Mehidy failed to produce big hauls against most opponents. He also wasn't much of a consistent white-ball performer, regularly losing his place in the ODI and T20I sides.

Be that as it may, age is on his side. His achievements before he turned 25 are impressive, if not outstanding. He is the tenth overall to score 1000 runs and take 100 wickets below that age. He plays for Bangladesh, a team known to give young cricketers early breaks. Even so, he has the most wickets for the team among all bowlers under 25. And as much as Bangladesh have given many young cricketers early breaks, they have also discarded most of them just as swiftly. Mehidy has stood apart with his durability, and now, seven years into his career, he is a pivotal player in Bangladesh's World Cup plans.

The twin performances against India marked the close of his best year since his breakthrough season in 2016. He won back his T20I place in 2022 through improved bowling and by showing willingness to open the batting in desperate times. He also took his first Test five-for against India, and picked up four-wicket hauls in ODIs in South Africa and West Indies. In February 2022, he played a crucial hand in a 174-run unbroken seventh-wicket partnership with Afif Hossain after Bangladesh slipped to 45 for 6 against Afghanistan in a home ODI.

Mehidy's progress as a batter earned him the team management's trust when they were looking to play a sixth bowler and so needed someone with enough batting ability at No. 7. Batters like Afif, Yasir Ali and Mosaddek Hossain were passed on. Mehidy won the vote of confidence.

"I know that the team management relies on me," he said. "You earn that trust in time - it doesn't happen in one day. I had to bat well to get to this stage. I have batted at No. 7 in the last two series. It makes life easier for a player when he is given a specific role or position for a longer term. I know what I will face, so I can plan better.

"Every position has its unique challenges, when you talk about openers and batters at Nos. 3, 4 or 5. Depending on the number of balls remaining, batting at No. 7 has another type of challenge. There's a huge difference between batting with specialist batters and batting with bowlers," he said.

Mehidy says his progress as an ODI batter owes a lot to the few months last year when he was being prepared to be an opener in the T20I side. Bangladesh had gone through several openers before Mehidy was suggested as an option. He took the challenge up, scoring 111 runs in five games across the Asia Cup and a tri-series in New Zealand in September and October, though the team management, despite ostensibly preparing him for the role, didn't use him as an opener in the T20 World Cup shortly after.

Still, that phase when he faced the new ball in training almost every day for three months, improved his overall batting significantly, he said. "I started to bat early in the practice sessions. I played a lot of good fast bowling. I could get the feel of ball on bat."

Mehidy is now being considered as a genuine allrounder for Bangladesh. It is an unusual development in the subcontinent that a player, having started as a specialist bowler, adds a prominent batting string to his bow a few years into his career. That's not to say that Mehidy has focused on his batting to the exclusion of his main skill. In fact, he has become a better white-ball bowler in recent months, in contrast to early in his career, when he was thought of as something of a one-dimensional home Test specialist spinner.

"I think I am a better bowler," he said, "although I am working on specific areas for day-by-day improvement. I wouldn't be able to survive as a bowler by being just of a certain type. As an offspinner, it is tough to survive in white-ball cricket at the international level. Batters can do a lot of things.

"I can dominate a batter when he is in two minds, but when I am facing a very aggressive batter, either I will get smacked or I will get him out. Those batters need your extra focus as a bowler. I struggled against the England right-handers recently. A boundary and three singles in the over makes life difficult for the offspinner. If another bowler gets a breakthrough, then things become easier for me."

He told the story of how he turned it around in the middle of the Centurion ODI against South Africa last year, when Bangladesh won their first game in that country in 20 years of trying, and he took his first four-wicket bag away from home. The South Africans took 38 runs off him in his first four-over spell. It left the captain, Tamim Iqbal, looking for a sixth bowler as he tried to defend 314 runs.

"I didn't bowl well in that game, at least in the first stages," Mehidy said. "The batters charged at me, scored runs in my first four overs. But we had only five specialist bowlers, so if one got hit, the team could lose the game. Though we had a lot of runs to play with, I had to bowl tightly for the remaining six overs.

"I didn't know how it would happen. I told myself that I needed to bowl better. I was getting mentally prepared. Then I told Tamim bhai to give me the ball. 'I can do well. I will do something.' When I went on my own to the captain, he found confidence in me," Mehidy said.

He slowed his pace against the lower-order batters. It was a simple-seeming adjustment, but any spinner will tell you that slowing it down against big-hitting batters takes courage. Mehidy took four of the last five wickets to fall, including that of David Miller, who had had the measure of him in his first spell. That precipitated a minor collapse and sealed the win.

Mehidy said that he brought back memories of doing well against Afghanistan earlier in the year to gee himself up against South Africa. "Belief doesn't come automatically. You will know yourself when you have a clear mind. You will have reference points and past records, which will give you the belief.

"I have always spoken positively rather than negatively [to myself] during a match. If you research people's psychology, you will find that there's a higher percentage of negative thoughts. You have to grow the positive mindset, and once you let it grow, it brings down the negative percentage," he said.

When the topic of match-ups came up, Mehidy grew animated. He has heard plenty about how offspinners are best off bowling against left-hand batters. "Let me tell you something," he interrupted before the question was finished. "A right-arm bowler is apparently easy for a right-hand batter. But I feel that I have bowled more to right-handers. Had I only bowled well against only left-handers, I would have never played for Bangladesh." The numbers more or less bear him out - Mehidy averages 33.67 against right-handers and about 30 against left-handers in all international cricket; the difference in strike rates and economy rates is even smaller. "An average offspinner can bowl two dots out of six balls against left-handed batters," he said. "I focus on ensuring that the right-hand batter can't handle me properly. They will target to hit me. If I can prevent it, I will be successful. This is my challenge."

One of those right-hander wickets was of Virat Kohli during the Mirpur Test against India in December last year. Mehidy built up to that dismissal superbly, having got rid of Cheteshwar Pujara and Shubman Gill in that spell on the third evening. He conceded just one run off nine balls to Kohli before Kohli lunged at a delivery spinning in, which had a bit of air on it. It took the inside edge and Mominul Haque took the catch at short leg. Mehidy had his dream wicket after trying for six years.

"I always wanted to take his wicket," Mehidy said. "He was saved by the review in Hyderabad [in 2017 ]. [Litton Das] Dada unfortunately dropped him during the ODI series [in December 2022]. It was a great feeling to get him out."

When asked about the upcoming World Cup in India, Mehidy said he has already started working on specifics with a view to the tournament. No doubt he will want to better his showing in 2019, when he only took six wickets and scored 37 runs. "I don't have a set target [for the World Cup]," he said. "Setting a target doesn't help my focus. It also attracts disappointment. I don't want to feel this. I have usually done well when I have gone into a tournament well prepared.

"We are five months out, so I don't know if I am playing the World Cup. It is not in my hands. But I am preparing. If I put in the right amount of hard work, I believe it will come in handy. Whether it is this World Cup or the next one, or some other series or tournament. That's where my focus is," he said.

Bangladesh's new breed of cricketers have given the country hope with their match-winning acts over the last three years. The hope is of a strong World Cup performance, but unlike the last time, they will be hoping for a better outcome: a realistic hope for a team of Bangladesh's standing currently, is of a semi-final spot.

The likes of Mehidy, Litton and Taskin were fringe stars only a few years ago. Now they are frontrunners, with the more senior players probably in their last act. Mehidy's new batting role and improved white-ball bowling, with occasional match-winning consequences, could be a key factor for Bangladesh. He is certainly preparing for it to be.