August 6, 2006, Harare Sports club, Zimbabwe. An ODI match between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. A young teenage boy of 18, making his debut there, scored 30 runs off 49 balls, and took one wicket for 39 runs.
Nothing special, right? Well, till this day, that boy has scored over 12,000 international runs and picked up 619 wickets. You guessed it right. It’s Shakib Al Hasan.
Shakib’s career is now of almost 16 years. And in that time, achievement and records were probably the most constant thing for the ace all-rounder.
For the past ten years, he has consistently been on the top of the world’s all-rounder ranking. Several times, he was the best all-rounder in the world in all three formats of cricket.
Record folds for arguably the ‘greatest’ all-rounder
Shakib Al Hasan is the first Bangladeshi batsman, who scored a double century and scored a duck in a single Test match.
He holds the record of scoring most international runs in a single venue, scoring 4,483 runs at Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium. He is also the record holder of most scalps in a single venue, picking up 223 wickets in the same ground.
One of the most coveted records by Shakib Al Hassan is being the only Bangladeshi cricketer to have a 5-wicket haul against every Test-playing nation. Even if we consider the whole cricketing history, he is up there in the elite list with Muttiah Muralitharan, Dale Steyn and Rangana Herath.
Also, he has achieved five-wicket hauls in all three formats of cricket, which makes him the first Bangladeshi to do so. Besides Shakib, only nine other players have found their way on to the list.
Best cricketers are often judged by their impact on the game in the biggest of the stages. Shakib has ticked that box with flying colours. He is the first Bangladeshi player to score 1,000+ runs in ICC World Cup tournaments.
The ICC World Cup 2019 will be specially remembered for his colossal performance. Shakib scored 606 runs and picked up 11 wickets and in the process, made one of the greatest individual performances in any ICC tournament ever.
As the only player after the great Sachin Tendulkar, Shakib Al Hasan achieved the honour of scoring the most half-centuries in a single ICC World Cup tournament by scoring seven 50s.
After Yuvraj Singh, Shakib AL Hasan is the only player to take five wickets and score a fifty in a World Cup match.
As an all-rounder, Shakib Al Hasan is the fastest player in the world to score 10,000 runs and take 500 wickets. Besides, he is the first Bangladeshi, and the fourth player in the world, who took 10 wickets and scored a century in a single Test.
In T20Is, Shakib Al Hasan is the only player in the world to take five wickets as the captain of his side. With 119 wickets, Shakib Al Hasan is currently the highest wicket taker in T20Is.
This day, 35 years ago in 1987, Shakib Al Hasan was born. In his 16 years of career, he has been synonymous to records.
After a successful ODI campaign in South Africa, he has reached home to stay with his sickness-stricken family. We convey the primer all-round our support in this tough time and wish him a very Happy Birthday.
