Mahmudullah has joined Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Sunil Gavaskar in the list of batters to have got out in the 90s in ODIs in Sharjah. On Monday, November 11, the Bangladesh batter scored 98 runs off as many balls with seven fours and three sixes in the third and final ODI of the three-match series against Hashmatullah Shahidi’s Afghanistan at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.
Bangladesh vs Afghanistan, 3rd ODI Updates
Mahmudullah became the 16th Asian batter along with Ganguly, Tendulkar and Gavaskar to be dismissed in the 90s in Sharjah. The other batters are Marvan Atapattu, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Aravinda de Silva, Mudassar Nazar, Mohammad Azharuddin, Kris Srikkanth, Aamer Sohail, Asanka Gurunsinha, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Rameez Raja, Saeed Anwar and Shoaib Malik.
Amongst them, Atapattu got out in the 90s three times in Sharjah; 94 against Pakistan in 1997, 90 against Zimbabwe in 2000 and 92 against Zimbabwe in 2001. Mahmudullah also made history by recording the highest individual score by a Bangladeshi batter in ODIs in Sharjah. He went past Najmul Hossain Shanto’s 76 in the second ODI of the series.
Mahmudullah returns to form
Mahmudullah did not have the best of times in the first two ODIs after getting scores of only two and three against the Afghans. But he returned his fortunes around with the spectacular knock on Monday.
He came to bat at No.6 after Bangladesh were reduced to 72 for four from 53 for one in a space of 6.2 overs. From there on, Mahmudullah joined hands with Mehidy Hasan Miraz and built a partnership of 145 runs for the fifth wicket.
Mahmudullah got to his half-century off 63 balls and shifted the pressure right back on Afghanistan. In the last ball of the final over from Azmatullah Omarzai, Mahmudullah needed three runs to get to his hundred.
He ran hard, but fell short of his second run. A strong throw from Rahmat Shah caught Mahmudullah short of his ground at the striker’s end.
