‘I have faced it myself. It’s terrible’: Mominul empathises with Shanto

Despite bursting into the scene with a slew of centuries in the early stage, Mominul Haque has witnessed both sides of the coin in his career.

The leading centurion for the Tigers in Tests took himself one step further by smashing his 12th Test ton against Afghanistan in the second innings of the lone Test in Mirpur on Friday.

Interestingly, when Najmul Hossain Shanto became only the second Bangladeshi batter to score hundreds in both innings of a Test after Mominul, the former captain was watching from the non-striker's end.

Mominul and Shanto have some similarities when it comes to dealing with criticism and overcoming tough periods in their career.

Mominul, who was made Test captain in absence of Shakib Al Hasan prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, eventually lost his captaincy after a lean patch when he managed to score just one half-century in 18 innings.

He even lost his place in the Test side after that but the southpaw batter made a comeback with an 84-run knock against India last year. After not being able to score significantly in the last Ireland Test, Mominul finally smashed his first hundred after 26 innings. The 31-year-old compared his mental state with that of Shanto, who went through immense criticism early in his career.

"I have faced it myself. It's terrible. Those who went through this know. I felt like the whole world is at one side and I am at the other side. Only those who face it know. You can only maintain your process and the rest is up to the Almighty if he allows you to score runs. Shanto maintained his process. Though I don't know what he worked on psychology-wise, he was confident," said Mominul during the post-day press conference on Friday.

The former captain also advised Shanto, who has been consistent across all formats in recent times, to continue his purple patch and praised his batting approach.

''It seems batting is so easy while watching Shanto's innings and even I feel like batting like him but it's difficult for me. Both Shanto and Liton make batting look so easy. Shanto has the ability to dispatch those bad deliveries for a boundary and the way he batted in such heat was a huge achievement for him to score two hundreds,'' said Mominul.