Liton explains his new avatar
Rajshahi Royals opener Liton Das has presented a new avatar of himself during this Bangabandhu Bangladesh Premier League (BBPL).
The elegant right-handed batsman had never been doubted for his shot-making ability. In fact, he has long been considered one of the brightest prospects in the game, evidenced by tons of runs he scored in first-class and List A matches. However, when it came to more competitive outings – international matches and T20 franchise cricket, his consistency and temperament often left a lot to be desired.
But things are changing it seems and the batsman acknowledges that gaining maturity and picking the right shots are two things that are driving this change.
Liton played for Sylhet Sixers in last BPL in January-February last year, managing only 192 in 11 games at a strike rate of 141.7 with a solitary fifty to his name. However, this time around, despite seeing his strike rate drop a wee bit, to 139.73, Liton has scored 422 runs in 12 innings with three fifties.
“I think it is [getting more runs] because of the improvement in my maturity level,” Liton said at the post-match press conference after his 48-ball 75 which helped Rajshahi Royals eclipse Chattogram Challengers’ 155 with eight wickets in hand and 14 balls to spare in the two sides’ last league-stage match at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur yesterday. The win also helped Rajshahi cement their place in the top two of the table, ensuring their berth in the playoff qualifier.
The 25-year-old elaborated on the change in his batting fortunes, attributing the success to his maturity and choice of shots.
“I think, what changed is that in the past three or four BPL seasons, I had the tendency of keeping on hitting once I struck a few. I can play all types of shots and that’s why I tried to play every shot. I think in this BPL I reduced playing few shots. And if you see, in the past BPL seasons I used to score 27 to 30 runs off 15 or 17 balls but then I used to get dismissed. But in this BPL, in maximum games, I scored around 13 or 17 off 15 balls. I am actually playing normal cricket during that phase of my innings. In powerplays when you smash a boundary, the bowler tries to do something different. So I thought that I need to adjust and not play shots on every delivery,” said Liton.
Not only change in approach, Liton admitted to have made changes to his stance and head position after working with the national team’s batting coach Neil McKenzie.
“I actually did not use to bat like this. I worked with Neil [McKenzie] for a long time and for that there have been some changes in my feet movement. There have been changes in my head position. Even in the last two-three matches my head was getting tilted, so I worked on that,” Liton said.
Liton’s opening partner Afif Hossain, too, has been fairly successful in this edition of the BPL. The 88-run opening stand by this duo gave Rajshahi a brisk start in yesterday’s game, with Afif contributing 32 of those runs. Liton opined that the aggressive batting nature of Afif allowed him to play his natural game.
While it was a happy outing for both the Rajshahi openers, Chattogram batsmen had not much to brag about. Skipper Mahmudullah’s unbeaten 33-ball 48 and a quick-fire 17-ball 30 from Nurul Hasan saw them post a modest total, which eventually proved too little to challenge Rajshahi.
