||CF Correspondent ||

Bangladesh promising opener Saif Hasan said on Friday that he is reaping the benefit of technical changes that he brought into his batting.

Saif scored a brilliant double hundred in the ongoing National Cricket League to make a strong claim for a place in the upcoming two-match Test series against India.

The right-handed batsman has paddled through tough times to emerge as a top contender to take over one of the opening slots in the national set-up in the near future.

The 20-year-old composed 814 runs at a strike rate of around 80 for the Prime Dholeshar Club in the DPL 2018-19 while he seemed to be carrying that form as he is scoring regularly at every given opputunity.

Saif encapsulated the point that hard work pays rich dividends as he improved his game by tweaking his back lift to score quicker and it was evident in the recent past as he is scoring runs in every sphere.

While he scored a double hundred in the NCL he scored two centuries against Sri Lanka emerging team and Sri Lanka A team in the recent past to showcase his talent in front of the national selectors.

‘’I was working on some basic technical aspects of my batting. I focused on perfecting my grip of the cricket bat and how to use to the top and bottom hand. I was trying have to a high backlift against pace bowlers and a low one against spin bowlers. Now I can work the gaps, much better as well as the play the power shots at ease,’’ Saif told reporters after the double hundred adding that he is enjoying his batting after making those changes though no one imposed on him anything.  

‘’After bringing in the changes, I am enjoying batting much more than I used to as I have made a lot of progress in terms of my batting after implementing these changes. I used to lob against spin but now I am opening my wrists more often. I can now play shots all over the ground. Fitness is also another important aspect which I focused on,’’ he said.

‘’The change was not suggested by anyone as I felt the need for improvement and worked on it. Earlier, when I was left out of BPL squads, I used that time to work on these aspects of batting. I focused on my lackings and tried to improve on them. Afterwards in Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League, I was discussed these issues with coach Babul Sir. He also helped me with the improvements,’’ he added.

Saif said that as the fielders were outside the circle he had to play on ones and twos and worked really hard for the second hundred after arriving at 120 in the crease.

‘’When I came into bat I had overnight score of 120 runs. All the fielders were outside the ring. They placed fielders in all of the places where I could have picked the boundaries. I couldn’t loft it over the fielder for easy runs. The 100 runs I added today came from mostly singles specifically 70 runs. I had to work really hard today,’’ he said.