Mirpur, April 18 (IANS) Former Bangladesh cricket captain Mushfiqur Rahim has backed Tamim Iqbal's celebration on scoring a century against Pakistan in the first One-Day International (ODI) at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium here.
The hosts won the match in comprehensive fashion by 79 runs after Tamim and Mushfiq scored dazzling centuries to power the hosts to 329/6 on Friday, reports bdnews.24.com.
It was Tamim's first century in over two years. The left-hander cracked two boundaries off spinner Saeed Ajmal in the 35th over to reach his fifth ODI hundred. He then put his bat down, took off his gloves and faced the galleries to gesture with hands, suggesting 'less talk'.
"Anyone will understand because in last 4-5 months people have been talking about him. Any player may go through some bad times. In the World Cup, many good players couldn't even score 200 runs (in total). He played a crucial innings against Scotland," Mushfiqur said.
"If we had not got a good start, we could've have not won the game and if we lost the match, we wouldn't have reached the quarterfinals."
Tamim played a solid knock of 95 against Scotland in the pool phase of the World Cup that led Bangladesh to their first win in the competition, chasing over 300. The wicketkeeper-batsman was all praise for the opener.
"I believe that very few batsmen like him have emerged and very few will come in the future. People will criticise. At this point in time if everyone says - yes Tamim has done this - then it will be good for him. So the celebration was great, I liked it," said Mushfiqur.
Mushfiqur said he had advised Tamim to not take too many risks after reaching half-century.
"I told him 'we will play till at least 45th over'. I tried to remind him that the wicket is such that only set batsmen can score a lot. He played a very calculative, mature innings. I am surprised that I got the Man of the Match award," added the keeper.
Stand-in skipper Shakib Al Hasan also lauded Tamim's knock.
"The way he built his innings it was brilliant. He was under a bit of pressure but it never showed in his batting. The way they both (Tamim and Mushfiq) batted was a turning point in the match," Shakib said.