Mahmudullah emerges as big performer

Mahmudullah never wanted to be a hero. But having finished the World Cup's group stage among the top five scorers, he has become one. He will play Bangladesh's first knockout game of a major tournament as one of the team's big performers, taking on new responsibility and ensuring stability.
Before the match against England on March 9, all talk regarding Bangladesh was around the captain Mashrafe Mortaza, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim and Tamim Iqbal. Mahmudullah's unbeaten 21 in the win against England in the previous World Cup was only a passing reference. He remained one of the bit-part performers. Until of course he struck two consecutive hundreds against England and New Zealand in the space of four days, dramatically changing perceptions.
Runs weren't all Mahmudullah got out of the two centuries. The big performances saw him regarded as one of the big players in the team. Shakib, Tamim, Mushfiqur and Mashrafe all have enough performances to prove themselves as match-winners.  Mahmudullah only had that unbeaten 21 and some important runs in the ODI series win over West Indies in 2012. He also briefly became the highest scorer at No. 7 in the world between the time of his ODI debut and the end of 2012.
But thereafter, he didn't add much to his catalogue and after he had somehow managed to overcome a two-year slump at the end of 2014, he badly needed a big day in international cricket. His two innings in Adelaide and Hamilton were the much-needed meat to his modest numbers, which were based on him batting at No. 7 for more than half his ODI career.
For the first seven and a half years of his international career, batting never came so fluently for Mahmudullah. He was a No. 7 batsman who remained not out one-third of the time. Before 2015, he had scored just four fifties in 44 Bangladesh wins. He wasn't a big hitter by any stretch of the imagination (he has a 75.32 strike-rate at No. 7) and would often struggle to push the run-rate.
    — ESPNcricinfo