Eight months ago, Munim Shahriar faced a make-or-break situation in his fledgling cricket career. Abahani Limited had dropped him after he made 69 runs in four matches in the Dhaka Premier League T20s.
One day during training, Abahani coach Khaled Mahmud took the young batter aside. He couldn’t give the young opener enough chances that season, so he understood that Munim perhaps needed a bit of attention from him. Mahmud had a talk with Munim, convincing him that he should continue to bat the way that came to him naturally.
“After I was dropped for two matches, Sujon sir told me, ‘Why are you so worried? Just play freely.’ Those words really had an impact on me,” Munim tells ESPNcricinfo.
“In the next game, I made 92 off 50 balls against Prime Bank, and followed it up with a 40-ball 74. I finished the league with 355 runs at 143 strike rate.”
Mahmud had first met Munim during the 2019-20 Dhaka Premier League, when Abahani were looking for an opener in the 50-over competition. Mosaddek Hossain, a senior figure in Mymensingh, which is also Munim’s hometown, and Najmul Hossain Shanto, Munim’s Under-19 team-mate, had recommended him to Mahmud.
That conversation was the turning point in Munim’s career
Munim has a very modern style of batting: mostly standing still and hitting through the line of the ball. He has played some breath-taking shots in the BPL, particularly over mid-off. During the first qualifier against Comilla Victorians, there was a moment of silence when he smashed Mustafizur Rahman for a six over midwicket. It was a normal pull shot, but Munim made a last-second adjustment by straightening his wrist slightly. It not just looked stylish, but showed that he could take on the country’s best T20 bowler too.
Munim’s strike rate of 161.81 has easily made him the most talked-about Bangladeshi batter in the tournament. He has made 178 runs in five innings, and if you have followed Bangladesh's plights in T20Is the last seven months, it’s easy to see why everyone is excited. He might now be a shoo-in for a call-up for the two T20Is against Afghanistan in early March.
The 23-year-old Munim, however, isn’t looking that far ahead just yet. He has the BPL final in mind, and he wants to focus on the job at hand.
“After I missed out the first few matches because of Covid, I needed a bit of time to prepare for the BPL,” he says.
“The team was trying a few opening combinations. (Jake) Lintott and (Dwayne) Bravo opened with (Chris) Gayle at one point. The night before my first game, Sujon sir told me that I would get to play four matches. It gave me the freedom.”
Munim is very aware that getting runs like he does - going after the bowling from the word go - on Bangladeshi pitches is a high-risk game. “I have only played two tournaments so there’s a long way to go. I know that I have batted this way, and it is far more important to be able to play in this manner in the long-term.
“Those who know me are aware that I have an aggressive mindset as a batsman. I follow the process and stick to the plan too. I try to take advantage of the circle, and I like batting against the new ball. I have batted like this since my school days. I even batted like this in three-day matches as well. My coach (the late Hayatul Islam Hannan) always trained me to bat this way.”
There are enough cautionary tales in Bangladesh cricket for Munim to keep in mind. One-hit wonders are many, though a few Bangladeshi batters have used the BPL as their launching pads.
But Munim has the eagerness and batting style that Bangladesh have long needed in white-ball cricket. There’s reward in backing a talent like him - think David Warner. Whether he stays the course or not is another matter, but he could well change Bangladesh’s batting approach in T20I cricket if he gets a run.
