|| CF Correspondent ||

Wicketkeeper-batsman Mushfiqur Rahim, who entered 15th year of his florid career recalled his hard time of captaincy, stating that he passed a tough working time under Chandika Hathurusingha.

Mushfiqur touted himself as unhappy under his tenure and said it would be a different scenario if he would get the much-needed support from the authoritarian coach during his captaincy period.

“When the team does well, all the credit goes to the coach but if the team doesn’t do well, I am to face the blame. So I became alone at that time. If he takes credit when the team is having good times, he should also back the captain during bad times. So I think that I was very unlucky I didn’t get any support from him at that time, and it hampered me and the team,” Mushfiqur Rahim said in an interview to a leading online portal Cricbuzz.

Mushfiqur was announced captain of the Bangladesh team on September 20, 2011 across all the formats after a disappointing tour of Zimbabwe. He was replaced by Mashrafe Bin Mortaza later in September 2014 in the shorter formats but he retained his Test captaincy until 2018.

Mushfiqur said that when Hathurusingha came to coach the side where there were a number of senior players who were already compact at that time, he didn’t have to do a lot instead of grooming them.

He also said that Hathurusigha’s gesture during the last tour in South Africa was so indifferent which affected the team vastly and made him alone.

“Each coach is of a different type. It’s just that he had a different way of thinking. He has succeeded with the creativity and philosophy he had, no one can deny that. Obviously he also has to admit that when he came he had some players who had so much potential, like Tamim, Shakib and Mashrafe, and me,” he said.

“He had come to coach during a time when five-six of the senior players were performing well and he got a team which he just had to groom. Previous coaches have invested a lot but didn’t get any results but he got the result after arriving. We probably failed to understand each other,” the veteran right-handed batsman added.

“It’s true sometimes I took decisions of which he didn’t approve, and the other way around. That happens. But during his last tour of South Africa, he was completely different - he was having less involvement in the team meetings and practice sessions, which we had not seen in the last three-four years. So it seemed different to me, which affected the team as well. I was alone; I didn't have any support at that time,” he added.