Mominul Haque Remains Bangladesh’s Quiet Constant in Test Cricket

Mominul Haque has spent much of his Test career doing work that rarely demands noise. In a Bangladesh side that has often shifted between rebuilding phases and brief moments of promise, he became one of the few batters trusted to hold an innings together over long stretches.

From the beginning, his game appeared built for the demands of Test cricket rather than its distractions. On debut in Galle in 2013, he scored 55 and quickly settled into the roles at No. 3 and No. 4 that would define much of his career. What followed was one of the steadiest starts by a Bangladesh batter in the format. Across 11 consecutive Tests, Mominul passed fifty each time, a sequence that established him as a specialist in conditions where patience and concentration mattered more than flair.

His best periods often came at home. Against New Zealand, he struck two centuries in a series that made him the first Bangladesh batter to score more than 300 runs in a two-Test contest. Years later, against Sri Lanka in 2018, he repeated the feat and added another milestone by becoming the first Bangladesh batter to score centuries in both innings of a Test match.

Few grounds suited him better than Chattogram. Seven of his Test hundreds came there, more than any other Bangladesh batter has managed at a single venue. The familiarity of the surface and the rhythm of long innings seemed to fit naturally with his method.

But the consistency that marked his early years gradually became harder to maintain. From 2017 onward, his average slipped below 50 and continued falling until it dropped under 40 by 2022. During that period, he was handed the Test captaincy after Shakib Al Hasan was banned by the ICC for failing to report a corrupt approach.

The circumstances around Mominul’s appointment reflected how quickly the decision had been made. The Bangladesh Cricket Board had to send his captain’s blazer to India shortly before his first Test in charge in Indore.

Results during his leadership remained uneven. Bangladesh won only two Tests in his first seven series as captain, both against Zimbabwe, while his own batting average settled in the low 30s. Yet his tenure was not without defining moments.

The most significant arrived in Mount Maunganui in 2022, when Bangladesh secured a historic Test victory in New Zealand. Mominul contributed 88 runs in that match and drew praise for the way he managed the pace attack, rotating Taskin Ahmed, Ebadot Hossain and Shoriful Islam in short, effective spells.

The captaincy, however, lasted only five more Tests. Questions over both his form and the team’s performances grew louder, and the role eventually moved on from him.

Mominul later answered some of that scrutiny in the way he has often responded throughout his career — with long innings rather than public statements. A second-innings century against Afghanistan helped shape a major Bangladesh win a year later. Then, in 2024, he produced two innings that again underlined his value in difficult situations: a fifty in Bangladesh’s ten-wicket victory in Rawalpindi and an unbeaten 107 in Kanpur, where he batted for nearly five hours.

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For much of his career, Mominul has existed slightly outside the spotlight surrounding Bangladesh cricket. Yet across changing teams, shifting leadership and uneven results, he has remained closely tied to the side’s most durable work in Test matches.