Bangladesh opener reveals reasons behind career-best innings

Bangladesh opener Mahmudul Hasan Joy has credited former skipper Mohammad Ashraful and hard work at training as the major reasons behind his career-best knock against Ireland in Sylhet.

Mahmudul helped put Bangladesh on the brink of victory in the first Test of the two-match series against Ireland as he smashed an impressive innings of 171 during his side's whopping first innings of 587/8 declared at Sylhet International Cricket Stadium.

It was Mahmudul's first Test appearance since he featured against Zimbabwe in April, with the right-hander having been dropped from the side for the series against Sri Lanka in the middle of the year after a lean patch with the bat.

While disappointed he couldn't go on and score a double-century, Mahmudul was thrilled to have made a strong contribution as Bangladesh closed in on victory with Ireland reaching 84/5 in their second innings at stumps on day three and still trailing by 215 overall.

"I'm happy to return to the Bangladesh team after quite some time," Mahmudul said.

"I was able to play a big innings for the team. It would have been better if it were a double-hundred. A little disappointed on that front."

Mahmudul admitted he had not changed much with his technique during his time out of the Test side, putting his success at Sylhet down to hard work in the nets alongside his coaches.

The 25-year-old made special mention of working with Ashraful ahead of the Ireland series, after the former Bangladesh captain joined the side as batting coach recently.

"No, not much has changed technically. I used to have a big shuffle across and now it's much shorter - that's the only change I've made," Mahmudul said.

"I didn't really work on anything major here. I'd say I worked more in the Tigers camp. I got a lot of help from the local coaches there.

"Ashraful bhai (Bangladesh's new batting coach) just came for this series and I hadn't worked much with him before. He just gave a couple of points. Salahuddin sir (coach Mohammad Salahuddin) was there before and he knows me. So no big changes were made. They just told me to play my natural game."