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Tamim in seventh heaven

32Tamim Iqbal continued sending the Bangladesh fans in delirium as he was batting with great composure and steely resolve. The latest feat came against ICC associates Oman when he smashed a 63 ball-103 not out, an innings that etched his name permanently to the folklore of Bangladesh cricket. It was the first century by any Bangladesh batsman in the shortest format of cricket and first by any Bangladesh batsman in World T20. The magnitude of the century however made the strength of the opponents forgotten.
In the process, he also went past 1000 runs in T20 International as first Bangladeshi batsman when he was on 11. Oman came as the surprise package in a must win game. Even though Bangladesh were outright favourite, Oman’s performance against Ireland earned some respect but on a day when Tamim was in his full glory, even a big team found it tough to resist him, let alone Oman.
He started the innings slowly with opening the account in fifth ball of the innings. The first boundary of Tamim came in the eighth ball and Bangladesh scored just 29 runs in the first powerplay (first 6 overs). It indicated the match would be evenly contest. But as Tamim came out from the shell, the Oman’s bowlers were made disarray in a flush of moment. He cleared the boundary with brute force, much to the mental damage of the Oman bowlers. He sent them in utter derision once he got set in the crease. Tamim reached his century in 19th over after playing 60 balls. The strike rate could have been much better than 163, should he connected the last three balls well.
It’s the century that he deserved more. Despite being the country’s best batsman by far distance over the last six or seven years, Tamim found him in hot water always with the unruly Bangladeshi fans particularly finding him to troll absurdly. Even his family was dragged into the matter when he failed to play good innings in any game. The 2015 World Cup was the burning example that how the fans became harsh on him. Despite making a match winning 95 runs against Scotland in a tough condition, he wasn’t spared. He scored a single digit figure in the next game and the so called fans started trolling him in the social media outlet and also demanded his exclusion from the team.
At one phase, it seemed Tamim started giving much importance to the fans reaction which made an adverse impact on his game as the poor run-of-form affected him badly. His close ones however advised him not to give any importance to the words or criticise of the fans. Skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza and coach Chandika Hathurusingha also advised him to keep him away from the fans reaction. In 2015 Tamim performed Hajj which seemed to have calmed him down psychologically and thereafter the purple patch of career started which is still going on. It earned him many accolades but more importantly his form made Bangladesh a completely different team. Despite the emergence of some outstanding talents like— Mustafizur Rahman, Soumya Sarkar, Sabbir Rahman—Tamim remains by far the best.
Now the fans who trolled him and demanded his exclusion, begged the pardon through social media. They promised of not criticising him further which is a great victory for Tamim Iqbal.