Happy Birthday Mushfiqur Rahim

The Bangladesh national cricket team visited England in 2005. An 18-year-old teenager was in the squad for that tour. He was taken as the backup wicketkeeper, and he didn’t have much ambition about batting or keeping. The 18-year-old played a 63-run innings against Sussex and an unbeaten 115 * against Nottinghamshire in a warm-up match on that tour of England.

He then forced the team management to think anew about him. As a result, in the first Test of the tour, young Mushfiqur Rahim was taken into the team as a full-fledged batsman at the historic Lord’s Cricket Ground. He scored only 29 runs in two innings, and he did not play in the second Test due to injury.

Mushfiqur made his Test debut in the Bangladesh jersey against England at Lord’s on May 26 2005. He made his ODI debut for the national team against Zimbabwe in Harare on August 6 the following year. However, the journey of Mushfiqur, a wicketkeeper-batsman, which started at Lord’s on May 26, almost 17 years ago, continues to this day in its glory. In this journey of almost a decade and a half, Mushfiqur has witnessed every event of Bangladesh cricket, from walking to running and running to strength.

Mushfiqur was the assistant captain of Team Bangladesh from August 2009 to December 2010. He was the captain of the Bangladesh team from 2011 to 2017. Under his captaincy, Bangladesh defeated Test superpowers like Australia, England and Sri Lanka; Played for the first time in the final of Asia Cup Cricket. Mushfiqur has led Bangladesh in 37 ODIs, 34 Tests and 23 T20I matches.

Earlier, Mushi had the experience of leading Team Bangladesh in the Under-19 World Cup held in 2006. Future international stars Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal were in the team. The Mushfiqur-led Tigers were able to advance to the quarter-finals that year.

So far Mushfiqur has played 80 Tests for Bangladesh. He turned double 42% of the total centuries of Test career. Following him, Stephen Fleming converted 33%, Bob Simpson and Brendon McCullum converted 30% to double centuries. Mushfiqur, the first double centurion in the country’s history and the only batsman so far to score 3 double centuries in Tests, has scored 4932 runs at an average of 36.00 with 7 centuries. Where he was unbeaten 10 times, he has played 25 innings of half a century where Mushi hit 596 boundaries and 31 over boundaries.

Mushfiqur has scored 6697 runs in 233 ODIs at an average of 36.6. There are 8 centuries, and there are 41 half-century innings. He has also played 86 matches for the Tigers in the T20, the shortest version of cricket. Mushfiqur’s name has 1495 runs with 6 half-centuries.

Today is Mushfiqur’s 35th birthday, making his Test debut at the historic Lord’s in 2005. The arrival of Mr. Dependable is on May 9, 1987 at Matidali in Bogra by illuminating the lap of father Mahbub Hamid and mother, Rahima Khatun. He has witnessed all the ups and downs of cricket in the last decade and a half. Not only that, Bangladesh has got a lot of success with Mushfiqur’s bat. All, including cricket fans, expect that he will continue to serve the national team for several more years as a symbol of this reliance. Happy Birthday Mushfiqur Rahim.