'What is your favourite shot at the moment?' Bangladesh's new batting prodigy Towhid Hridoy was in two minds before settling down on one, eventually. "Pull and cover drive but probably I am enjoying pulling at the moment," Hridoy told Cricbuzz on Tuesday.
The right-handed batter has all the reasons for picking up the pull shot considering he kickstarted the counter attack against Afghanistan in the first T20I by taking on a short ball from Fazalhaq Farooqi. Hridoy along with Shamim Hossain scripted a memorable win for the hosts and that knock helped the former remove all kinds of doubts regarding his abilities against top class bowling.
Hridoy showcased his maturity by targeting Azmatullah Omarzai and certainly it was brave call from his part to get on top of Fazalhaq, who has been troubling Bangladesh ever since international debut against them. Hridoy decided to curb his temptation against the Afghanistan spinners knowing that it was a risky proposition but he admitted if required he would have gone against the slow bowlers because he doesn't play with any preconceive notion against any spinners.
"Chasing in this type of game is very important. I feel that if any batter is able to chase in such a game he would get a big confidence boost considering these kinds of scenarios don't arrive frequently. I would want every batter to bat in such situations because then they will get confidence. Maybe in the games coming up, in the big events, such situations would come up.
In T20s, the matches go in different directions and fluctuate a lot and it's important for a batter to face these kinds of situations and execute well," he said.
"A lot of people say that my runs are coming against spinners. If you look into it, from the BPL or even before that, I scored more runs against pace. It doesn't matter to me whether it's spin or pace. What matters is what the situation demands. They have world-class spinners and when you are facing them, you have to think a lot. Rashid Khan, Mujeeb and Nabi and other good bowlers are there in the side. T20 is a kind of format where it becomes important to pick one or two bowlers from the opposition and that's what everyone does.
"Our plan, not only speaking of Farooqi or Omarzai, was that it was a better option to go for their pacers rather than their spinners. Rashid is their wicket-taking bowler and he doesn't give away a lot of runs. It's about the calculative risks you take according to various match scenarios. If the situation had demanded that we would have to take on Rashid Khan, we would have tried to take him on too."
The general consensus is that his high backlift allows him to play his shots given he gets into the position quick which also aids in using the pace of the bowler. "Actually, I haven't thought deeply about it (backlift). But I feel good with my current setup and that's how I'm batting at the moment. For the three formats, many of the batters have three different kinds of techniques. There are slight technical adjustments that batters come up with. There are some things tactically and technically that changes from time to time," said Hridoy adding that he keeps it as it is across every formats.
