Mustafizur Rahman talks about his idol, his best friends at Sunrisers Hyderabad, his natural talent

One of the biggest stars in the cricketing firmament at the moment is Bangladeshi medium pacer Mustafizur Rahman. The 20-year-old soft-spoken bowler has been enjoying a phenomenal debut season in the IPL for Sunrisers Hyderabad as well, managing to rack up 50 dot balls out of the 120 deliveries he has bowled till now.

Almost every second delivery he has bowled in IPL 9 has been a dot ball, a phenomenal achievement that sums up how Mustafizur has been going from strength to strength in the recent past as one of the brightest prospects in international cricket. He has figures of 7/115 in 20 overs in the ongoing season.

Mustafizur talked with Xtratime on his IPL journey, and held forth on a variety of topics such as his experience in the Sunrisers dressing room, how he mastered the off cutter, his role models, the passion of Bangladeshi fans. He also spoke of a desire to set things right with India captain MS Dhoni, with whom he had a bad first encounter during the series last year.

Mustafizur’s special weapon has been his slow off cutter, which even legendary cricketers like Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers have found difficult to deal with. On how he learnt to master that particular delivery, he said, “This is my natural talent. No one has taught me personally to bowl off cutters. During a net session in 2013/14, Anamul Haq Bijoy and Moshraffe Bhai was watching me bowl closely as the nets. Later they both suggested me that I should work on mastering this ball.”

He said that Mohammed Amir of Pakistan has been his role model because of his confidence with the ball in hand. He spoke about how Amir was already an established name when he had been coming up the junior ranks, and how much strength of mind he had exhibited in making his international comeback.

Sran and I share the greatest friendship: Mustafizur

‘Fiz’, as he is called by his Sunrisers teammates, has made some close friends in the dressing room on his Indian stint, but spoke about facing linguistic problems in communicating with the other players.

He said, “I am enjoying my stint here in SRH. My teammates have been fantastic so far. I have become a good friend of David Warner. Barinder Sran and I enjoy the greatest friendships. Both VVS Laxman and Muralitharan have been guiding me like elder brothers.

“However, I do not understand Hindi and English. My teammates also do not know Bengali. So every time I am having an off time from practice and matches I am in front of the Google translator.”

Mustafizur’s admission is proof of the challenges an international cricketer has to face away from the glare of the camera.

The first brush Indians had with the promising pacer was during the 2015 ODI series between the two teams. There had been a moment of controversy when Dhoni had collided in the middle of the pitch with Mustafizur, which had required the bowler to go off the field to receive treatment.

There had been accusations thrown at both the players back then. Mustafizur said that he would take the opportunity to apologise to the India captain when they next met.

“Well, I still maintain that I have not done it intentionally. But as things stand I have moved on leaving it behind me. But still I would like to say sorry to Dhoni for the incident when I meet him.”