Mushfiqur Rahim’s belligerence after reaching his maiden Test ton on Thursday was a way of giving it back to the Indians. At the post-match press conference, he said the India bowlers, particularly Sreesanth, tried to intimidate him by sledging.

“There was a lot of sledging while I was batting. I just kept quiet and wanted my bat to do the talking,” the Bangladesh vice-captain said.

“The Indian cricketers look down on us. They are a big team with many stars and they should be inspirational to teams like us. Everyone looks up to them, but the way they were behaving was disappointing. This also includes the way (Virender) Sehwag spoke about us before the start of this match. I thought if we could play a little better, it would have been the right way to answer him. But we could not,” he added.

Rahim said most of the remarks were directed at him as his batting frustrated the Indians.

“They were calling me a schoolboy,” he said as everyone who understood Bengali laughed aloud. “Sreesanth is the one who talks the most. But I kind of enjoyed it. I remained quiet and kept telling myself that the best way to answer them was with the bat. So, the celebrations were a little animated,” he said.

“I had a dream of scoring a Test ton. I was happy that it came against the world’s best Test team and under these circumstances,” Rahim said.

When asked about Sehwag, who was booed by the crowd when he walked up for the prize distribution, he said, “I can’t do anything about that,” and raised his hands as if to signal that the matter ended there.