Habibul Bashar is the current captain of Bangladesh cricket team. He is also the most successful test batsman for Bangladesh. Among the players currently playing for Bangladesh, he is one of the most consistent batsmen in both Test and ODI cricket.
Habibul is the leading run scorer among the Bangladeshi batsmen in both Test and ODI cricket and the most capped test player for Bangladesh team (playing 42 test matches yet). Moreover, you can realize his batting talent if you know that he is the only Bangladeshi batsmen who has more than two thousand runs in both Test and ODI cricket.
Yes, it is true that statistics can not always prove the class and talent of a player. However, his talent is not confined to statistics. He has almost all the shots in his book and looks stylish when he makes the boundaries through the mid wicket region.
If you have a look at his Test career, you can see that playing 42 Test matches he scored 2838 runs at an average of 34.60. He has 3 test centuries and 24 half centuries. That is why, once he was known as Mr. Fifty because of his incapability of turning the 50s into 100. Although his ODI career is not so gleaming, it is still enough to be the best among the Bangladeshi cricketers. He has the highest ODI runs for Bangladesh playing 100 ODI matches with 2020 runs at an average of 22.44. I am quoting Bangladesh coach Dev Whatmore regarding this excellent batsman from a BBC article:
"A very attacking player - he always wants to get on with the game and I like that"
Bangladesh team is now in the Caribbean to take part in the upcoming World Cup Cricket 2007. It would be the third world cup tournament for Bangladesh cricket team. Though the last world cup 2003 was a nightmare for the team, this time under the captaincy of Habibul Bashar, the team looks confident to play well in the world cup. So, I think he can be the great motivator for the players to set the team up in the world cup. And, in the two warm up matches so far, Habibul Bashar has led the team to victory.
Related Articles:
BBC
Banglacricket
Cricinfo
Wikipedia
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