Left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman enjoys every moment that he spends at his home town Satkhira. The 25-year old is known for grabbing every single opportunity to go to his village where he spends most of his time gossiping with his friends, riding bikes and visiting his fishery projects.
After the end of the recently concluded T20I series against Australia where he picked up seven wickets, Mustafizur didn’t waste any time visiting his village and it was a special trip for him considering he recently spent a large amount of his time in bio-bubble.
Since cricket resumed in the country last year after coronavirus lay-off, Mustafizur has been spending most of his time in bio-bubbles in different bio-bubble while playing the sport and he is expected to get into another bio-bubble from August 24 for the home series against New Zealand.
The series will be followed by the Indian Premier League and the ICC World T20 where he will have to stay in the bio-bubbles again.
“I love and cherish every moment staying here (in Satkhira) and can’t explain it through words,” Mustafizur told The Daily Sun during a recent interview.
Although Mustafizur has been passing a busy schedule, he didn’t hesitate to express his desire to play in the Big Bash League, an Australian professional franchise Twenty20 cricket league, one day only if he can make time.
After Mustafizur’s eye-catching performance against the Aussies at home, it is expected that he will be in high demand for the franchise-based tournament. However, Mustafizur is not losing his sleep thinking too much about it.
“I had received proposals from the Big Bash earlier but I wasn't free at that time as I had to represent my country in that period and so couldn’t play,” he said.
“In future if everything works out accordingly then I will definitely consider playing in the Big Bash. I always feel playing in different leagues and it helps me to be a better cricketer considering one can learn a lot when he plays against some of the best cricketers across the world,” he added.
Mustafizur said it is the same reason he is always eager to play in the IPL and he believed that it will help him prepare better for the upcoming ICC WT20 as both the tournaments are scheduled in UAE.
“World’s best players compete in this tournament (IPL) and if you are successful, it will certainly raise your confidence. And I am sure it will be the case with me because if I do well in the IPL then certainly I will be carrying loads of confidence going into the World Cup,” he said.
The 25-year-old played an instrumental role in Bangladesh’s maiden series win over Australia in any format and he seemed to be reaping the benefits of bowling to his strengths - like cutters and slower deliveries during the T20 series.
“It was not a wicket where you can experiment a lot and that is the reason I did not try too many things and just tried to follow the basics,” Mustafizur said.
“(But) I need to work on my back-hand slower (delivery). I have got control on it reasonably but need to sharpen it more,” he added.
Mustafizur insisted that he is not looking too far ahead and wants to concentrate on the upcoming New Zealand series rather than thinking about the World T20.
“New Zealand series is right around the corner and we have to play five matches against them. So I’m not thinking about anything besides this. I’ll think about the rest later,” he concluded.
