Sabbir Rahman is at a delicate point in his career. He has been embroiled in off-field trouble, and has to pay an unprecedentedly high fine for what the BCB has described as a serious disciplinary breach. The amount of money involved would make anyones head spin, let alone that of one as young as Sabbir.The next few months could define which way he heads in international cricket. He needs to repair his reputation after this transgression, and the best way would be to quickly revert to doing what he knows best: batting with a free mind.The predominantly aggressive mindset with which Sabbir approaches every kind of cricket, and which has its roots in his origins as a T20 specialist, has become representative of a shift in the mentality of Bangladesh batsmen at large.When Indian satellite-television channels started to become available in Bangladesh in the early 1990s, the current lot of cricketers in the country picked up most of what they know by watching matches telecast from around the world. But though the likes of Sanath Jayasuriya, Virender Sehwag, and now David Warner, have been watched keenly, very few Bangladesh batsmen have been able to bat aggressively like those players in a sustained fashion.Mohammad Ashraful and Aftab Ahmed were the first to bat at higher speeds against quality bowling but both lacked consistency. Tamim Iqbal started off as a bit of a dasher but modified his game to suit the wider needs of international cricket. And Shakib Al Hasans batting ability seems to have shrunk due to his over-exposure to T20.Sabbirs approach has provided a more localised blueprint of the Sehwag and Warner template. He differs from some of the best Bangladeshi batsmen in that he had his aggressive mindset before he made it to international cricket.****With no chairs in sight, we plonk ourselves down on the ground behind where the Rajshahi Kings players have placed their bags. Space is at a premium at the small Academy ground in Mirpur, with three teams training on the day, one on which no BPL games are due to be played. Sabbir speaks with the distinct Rajshahi cadence and gives off a smile every once in a while.At the crease, he doesnt move as the bowler approaches, and only reacts according to the length. He brings his bat down in a flash to play the square-cut. When pulling the ball, he unwinds fast from his stance into a fiery shot, not always lifting his front leg for balance. His driving in the arc from in front of point to midwicket is also full of simplicity. There is no big backlift or flourish. See ball, hit ball.He only recently made his maiden T20 century, a 61-ball 122 with nine sixes. Rajshahi couldnt beat Barisal Bulls in the match but the innings was a standout for its sheer quality of clean hitting. It followed an assured Test debut against England, in which Sabbir nearly won Bangladesh the match with a fighting half-century. Earlier in the year, he had produced a 54-ball 80 that gave Bangladesh their first T20 win over Sri Lanka.He says that his fondness for big hitting developed at an early age, as far back as 1996, when a 37-ball century in Nairobi took the world by storm.Since I followed Shahid Afridi in those days, I was attracted to big hitting, Sabbir said. Afridi had made that century, which made me think that even I should start hitting like him. But the problem was, I couldnt hit the ball too far. My friends didnt give me batting in tennis-ball cricket. The madness started within: how can I become a big-hitter?He found the solution quickly enough. I used to hang the ball in a sock and practise the big hitting at home. In school once, I ended up hitting six sixes. My confidence started building from that point.Growing up in cricket-mad Rajshahi, 250km northwest of Dhaka, Sabbir followed the well-trodden path of cricketers in the region, joining a cricket academy. He started at the Rashid Bari camp, from where he went to the Al-Rashid Cricket Academy, and then to the North Bengal Cricket Academy, a well-known finishing school that had a team in the Dhaka Second Division Cricket League.His coach at the time, Jamilur Rahman Saad, ferried him between cricket grounds during the Dhaka Premier League season as a substitute fielder. Teams that saw him repeatedly would complain to the match referee, but he mostly got away with it.When he was still studying at the Rajshahi Bholanath BB Hindu Academy, he played in the Dhaka Premier League for the first time, for Young Pegasus, a club that has been home to many Rajshahi players, among them Farhad Reza and Junaid Siddique.Sabbirs progress wasnt easy. He faced opposition at home, especially considering his older brother had joined the police force, which took him away from the family for long periods. Cricket in Bangladesh was big in the mid-2000s but it still sounded too adventurous a career path for a boy from a middle-class family that missed their oldest son.Sabbir was such an energetic kid that his coaches couldnt stop him from keeping wicket and bowling pace and offspin, which he did for months before settling on legspin and batting. He rose through the age-group ranks quickly and in 2010 gave a first glimpse of his hitting ability in that years Under-19 World Cup, batting at a 100-plus strike rate in six innings. A few months later his unbeaten 18-ball 33 helped Bangladesh win