August 21, 2003	Thursday	Jumadi-us-Sani 22, 1424

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KARACHI, Aug 20: Bangladesh’s batting hero Habibul Bashar says he is as puzzled as his admirers after failing to make a century in the first Test against Pakistan.

“It is something that I am now beginning to get tired of. I just can’t understand my failure to make big scores,” the 31-year-old said after making 71 on Wednesday. “Certainly getting big scores are something special which I’m not able to do. I will try very hard and hopefully next time my luck will hold.”

When asked whether one-day cricket had prevented him from being a prolific batsman, Habibul, his country’s only player with over 1,000 Test runs, negated the perception. “I am aggressive by nature and that’s the way I bat in Test cricket. One-day games have not been the reason for lack of consistency as far as big scores matter for me.”

The Bangladesh vice-captain said the pitch played true despite the greenish look.

“We thought that the pitch would do a lot. But it didn’t seam and swing as we had expected. It was generally on the slower side,” he remarked. “Hannan (Sarkar) and myself played the ball on its merit and scored off the loose ones. That’s why we managed to share a big partnership.”

Replying to another question, Habibul, who had shared in six of the seven century stands for Bangladesh, admitted that his side had lost the advantage after a promising beginning. “Yeah, to be honest, we batted poorly in the second half of the day. We shouldn’t have lost more than five wickets.”