Najmul Hossain Shanto, after finishing the first day of the Pallekele Test against Sri Lanka with an unbeaten 126, claimed that he did not pay attention to what people had to say about his continuous failure to perform in recent times. Shanto is often at the receiving end of endless trolls and criticisms on the social media platforms, with some people always against the idea of his inclusion in the team. But according to the elegant left-hander who has just got his maiden Test ton, he never paid much attention to all the negativities, and hence those could not affect his natural game. "Honestly, I haven't seen too much of what has been said on social media. My family told me about it but I guess people said what they said because they have better expectations from me and think that I'd do well. So that's my goal and make sure that I do what I can do well," Shanto said. Thanks to Shanto's unbeaten knock, alongside Tamim Iqbal's 90 and captain Mominul Haque's 64 not out, the Tigers are currently in a good position in the match, and have enjoyed one of the greater days of Bangladesh cricket in recent memory. They will resume the second day's play with the overnight score of 302 for two. Shanto believes the pitch is good for batting even though it has grass on it. He said he enjoyed batting but the first session of the second day could determine the direction of the game. "If we can bat well in the first session, we can then decide on what type of total will be a winnable total. I just enjoyed while batting but the new ball was challenging, especially on this wicket. The focus was to watch the balls because they were bowling in good lines and there were no freebies," he added. He also talked about the struggle he has been going through despite working to do better. "I worked really hard in the last few months and I wasn't scoring runs, but I knew if I stick around and play my natural game I can score and I'm really happy. Mentally I'm thinking very positively and that has helped me a lot. "Today I was much relaxed while batting and I wasn't thinking too much about when and where to score, my thought process was just to watch the ball and play accordingly," he added. On why he did not celebrate much after reaching three figures for the first time in his Test career, Shanto said "the job is not yet done". Shanto has so far aggregated 367 runs (including the 126* in the ongoing match) in his 7-match Test career at an average of 33.36, since making his debut against New Zealand in early 2017.