Shanto reveals he always had faith in himself to score big even when he wasn't getting runs

Najmul Hossain Shanto scored the third century of his Test career against Afghanistan on day one of the one-off Test at Mirpur. In the end, he got out after scoring 146 runs.

Shanto's been in tremendous form in all formats for the past few days but there was a lot of criticism for his poor showings earlier on in his career. That tumultuous period seems to be behind him now.

What has changed Shanto's fortunes with the bat? The left-handed batter doesn't think his mindset has changed, saying, "There is no difference. I always believed that my practice patterns were right and I was working hard while doing what I needed to do. But perhaps luck was not in my favour. I was giving the proper effort but the result was not coming."

Even if the criticism was bad, he accepted it and continued to try to improve himself, "When I don't score runs, I feel bad but I don't even think about the outside noise. Yes, the criticism felt bad at times but I didn't think too much about it.'

Shanto said that even though his form was bad, he always played with the mentality of scoring big runs, "I still thought I would get runs and I used to enter the field with the mindset of scoring big. I had that faith in my preparation too. For some reason it didn't happen but now I want to keep scoring big for as long as I can!"