ICC World Cup 2019 | Five-wicket haul against India was more satisfying, claims Mustafizur Rahman

ICC World Cup 2019 | Five-wicket haul against India was more satisfying, claims Mustafizur Rahman

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After claiming his second consecutive five-wicket haul of the World Cup against Pakistan on Friday, Mustafizur Rahman has now revealed that the five-wicket haul against India gave him more satisfaction due to the strength of the Indian batting. Mustafizur claimed his 100th ODI wicket on Friday.

Mustafizur Rahman ended his 2019 World Cup campaign in style on Friday, as he claimed his fifth five-wicket haul of his career, which took his wickets tally to 20 for the ongoing World Cup. Mustafizur also became the fastest Bangladeshi and the joint fourth fastest bowler in ODI history to reach the milestone of 100 wickets, getting to the landmark in just his 54th match. However, Mustafizur admitted that he was not totally satisfied and would have been happier if he had conceded fewer runs. 

"I am 50 percent happy. If I could have given less runs then [probably it would have been 100 percent]," said Mustafizur in an interview to Cricbuzz. "Five wickets are always memorable, it stays in the mind. It's the fifth time I got five wickets in a match in my career. Once in T20s," he added, talking about his performance. 

The Bangladeshi pace ace also revealed that the five-wicket haul against India was a bit more special to him due to the sheer strength of the Indian batting.  "Five wickets are always special. Back to back five wickets hauls in the World Cup, it's definitely something to rejoice. Considering the strength of the Indian batting lineup, those five wickets gave me more satisfaction. But I don't want to say which wicket gave me more satisfaction because all wickets are important to me," Mustafizur said.

Mustafizur, who has struggled to get natural swing off his bowling of late, also spoke about working on that aspect of his game, to get some inswing. "With the new ball swing is important. My ball doesn't swing that much. Sometimes it does but not that much. Many bowlers get natural swing, it doesn't happen with me. I have to work on that so that I can get the inswing," he said. 

Despite doing exceptionally well in the death overs, Mustafizur said that he was hoping for a much better performance while talking about the importance of variations. "Everyone is saying that I am doing well in the slog overs. But personally, I am not happy. I could have done a bit better. If I had more variations it would have been great," he said. 

"I am bowling cutters but my yorkers are 50-50. If the accuracy of yorkers gets better then I would do better in the death overs. I think playing more T20s will help accuracy while bowling in the last ten overs of a one-day game," Mustafizur added.

Mustafizur also said that he was ready to take on the challenge of bowling at any stage of an ODI match, and insisted that he was happy with his pace, while insisting that he still had to do some work on his variations.  

"I am ready to bowl at any stage in the match. I am a slightly different pace bowler. I average about 135kph, so I am not that quick. I am happy with my speed but I should be able to add a few more variations to my bowling." the Bangladeshi pacer concluded.

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