‘Nobody sacrificed like me’

In Bangladesh cricket’s long search for stability, one figure often became the movable piece on the chessboard. 
When the team needed calm in the middle-order, he was there. When a crisis demanded a finisher, he walked out again. Sometimes higher, sometimes lower, occasionally even in unfamiliar territory. 
For years, Mahmudullah Riyad simply adjusted and carried on.
Now, after retiring from international cricket, the former Bangladesh captain has revealed that behind that adaptability lay a quiet compromise. Deep down he preferred to bat higher in the order, particularly at number four or five. Yet the soft-spoken middle-order stalwart rarely pushed for it, instead accepting whatever role the team required.
Speaking recently on the Simply Sayeed podcast, Mahmudullah admitted that although he wished to bat higher in the order, he rarely voiced that preference.
“Deep inside I wanted to bat at number four or five. But I never raised my voice like that. I stayed quiet. If the opportunity comes, then I want to grab it,” he said.
Mahmudullah believes that willingness to adapt meant making sacrifices few others did. “Because over the years, Alhamdulillah, the amount of sacrifices I made in terms of batting position for the Bangladesh team, I think nobody did it. Nobody did it. No one,” he said.
The numbers from his international career illustrate just how often his position changed.
In Tests, Mahmudullah appeared almost everywhere in the batting order. He scored 57 runs from two innings at number three, 795 runs from 25 innings at number four, 300 runs from 18 innings at number five and 689 runs from 20 innings at number six. Even lower down, he was regularly used as a crisis solver, garnering 224 runs from seven innings at number seven and 802 runs from 19 innings at number eight, along with 47 runs from three innings at number nine.
The story is similar in One Day Internationals. While Mahmudullah built much of his reputation as a middle-order finisher, he was used across a wide spread of positions. He gathered 160 runs from eight innings at number three, 770 from 20 innings at number four and 831 from 29 innings at number five. Most of his ODI work, however, came further down the order, with 2,201 runs from 75 innings at number six and another 1,663 runs from 73 innings at number seven. He even had brief stints at number eight and nine. In T20Is too, the pattern hardly changed. Mahmudullah collected 79 runs from two innings at number three and 202 runs from nine innings at number four before settling mostly into the lower middle-order, where he totalled 901 runs from 51 innings at number five and 999 runs from 49 innings at number six. He also added 261 runs from 18 innings at number seven.
Yet he insists he holds no regrets, emphasising that the team’s success always mattered more than personal comfort.
“I did have a preference, but I had to sacrifice. Alhamdulillah, I am not complaining about anything. I was happy that if I could do what the team wanted and if the team produced results and did well, that was fine. I did not complain.”
Mahmudullah also recalled how former Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza frequently shifted him around the order depending on the team’s requirements.
“(Like say) Mashrafe bhai would come and say to me, ‘Riyad, you are batting at four today — tomorrow you will bat at five.’ I would say, ‘Alright, okay.’ If I scored runs at five he would say, ‘Alright, today bat at six.’ I would say, ‘Okay, fine. If you say so, no problem,” he concluded.