Mohammad Ashraful

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Mohammad Ashraful
Bangladesh
Personal information
Full name	Mohammad Ashraful
Nickname	Ash
Born	7 July 1984 (1984-07-07) (age 23)
	Dhaka, Bangladesh
Role	Batsman
Batting style	Right-handed
Bowling style	Leg spin (Right arm)
International information
Test debut (cap 17)	6 September 2001: v Sri Lanka
Last Test	29 February - 3 March 2008: v South Africa
ODI debut (cap 51)	11 April 2001: v Zimbabwe
Last ODI	19 April 2008: v Pakistan
ODI shirt no.	98
Domestic team information
Years	Team
2001-present	Dhaka Division
2000-2001	Dhaka Metropolis
2008-present	Mohamedan sporting club
Career statistics
	Tests	ODIs	T20I	FC
Matches	42	118	8	84
Runs scored	1922	2238	143	4610
Batting average	24.64	22.15	17.87	30.13
100s/50s	4/7	1/13	0/1	12/18
Top score	158*	100	61	263
Balls bowled	1183	384	96	5596
Wickets	12	11	4	99
Bowling average	76.91	36.63	32.00	34.15
5 wickets in innings	0	0	0	5
10 wickets in match	0	n/a	n/a	0
Best bowling	2/42	3/26	3/42	7/99
Catches/stumpings	14/-	18/-	1/-	38/-
As of 26 May 2008 Source: cricketarchive.com

Mohammad Ashraful (Bengali: মোহাম্মদ আশরাফুল) (born July 7, 1984 in Dhaka) is a Bangladeshi international cricket player and the captain of both the Test and ODI of Bangladeshi national cricket team. He has also been selected to represent ACC Asia XI ODI side.

[edit] Career

[edit] Test cricket

Ashraful made his test debut on 6 September 2001 against Sri Lanka. In the first innings he was dismissed for 26 runs from 53 balls, but in the second innings he scored his maiden Test century - 114 runs from 212 balls. The century made him the youngest player to score a test century in an international match. There has been some uncertainty regarding his birth date - some sources claim it is July 7,^[1] but others, as well as his passport, record it as September 9;^[2] although either date would qualify him for his world record status (previously held by Pakistani Mushtaq Mohammad, aged 17 years 82 days in 1960-1).

Following the century, Ashraful began receiving high expectations. However, a prolonged string of poor performances and soft dismissals resulted in him being dropped from the national team. He returned to the team in 2004 against the Indian cricket team and scored his second century, 158 not out, claiming the record for the highest individual Test score by a Bangladeshi.^[3] In 2006 he scored his third century, with 136 in the first test against Sri Lanka. In his maiden match as captain of Bangladeshi, during the 2007 season, against Sri Lanka, he made 7 runs in the first innings and the 37 in the second. In the second match of the tour and his captaincy Ashraful was out for a duck in the first innings but scored his fourth century in the second innings. He scored 129 not out, making him the first Bangladeshi cricketer to score 4 centuries.^[4] To date Ashraful is Bangladesh's second highest run-scorer in Test cricket behind Habibul Bashar.^[5]

During the first Test match of South Africa's 2007-08 tour, Ashraful dismissed AB de Villiers in unusual fashion: after the ball left his hand it bounced twice, at which point de Villiers attempted to hit the ball but instead sent it straight up instead.^[6] Ashraful caught the ball and, despite de Villiers standing his ground, umpire Steve Bucknor confirmed the dismissal. The dismissal was legal per Law 24, section 6 of the Laws of cricket which state the ball must bounce more than twice or roll along the ground to be deemed a no-ball.^[7][8]

[edit] One Day International career

Ashraful made his ODI debut against Zimbabwe on 11 April 2001, where he made just 9 runs and Bangladesh lost the match by 36 runs. He had a poor first World Cup - the 2003 Cricket World Cup - making 71 runs at an average of 14.20, with Bangladesh being eliminated in the Group Stage. Despite a poor start to his ODI career Ashraful has been one of the key batsmen in several of Bangladesh's famous victories. He made exactly 100 in Bangladesh's win over Australia at Cardiff in the 2005 NatWest Series, possibly one of the greatest upsets in sporting history. During the 2007 Cricket World Cup, he made 87 from 83 balls against the ICC ODI Championship world number 1 ranked South African team,^[9] helping his team clinch a 67 run win, with Ashraful being named the Man of the Match. With 216 runs at an average of 24, he was Bangladesh's highest run scorer in the World Cup. To date, Ashraful is Bangladesh's highest run-scorer in ODIs, .ref>Records - Bangladesh - One-Day Internationals - Most runs. Cricinfo. Retrieved on 2007-07-11.</ref>

[edit] Domestic cricket

When not playing with the national team, Ashraful plays domestic cricket for the Dhaka Division cricket team in Bangladesh's domestic one-day and First-class competitions, captaining both sides on occasion but with no real regularity. In November 2006 he set a league record score of 263, against Chittagong Division for Bangladeshi First-class cricket - although this record has since been bettered by Raqibul Hasan.^[10] Ashraful also captains Sonargaon Cricketers, a club in the Dhaka Premier League. He became captain at a crucial period as his team were placed at the bottom and turned team with a second place finish at the end of the season.^[11] He played for Rainhill CC in a local cricket league in UK.^[12]

[edit] Captaincy

Although Bangladesh performed well under the captaincy of Habibul Bashar in the 2007 Cricket World Cup, the Bangladesh Cricket Board decided to replace Bashar as the national team ODI captain after losing 2-0 to a touring Indian side in May 2007. There was a lot of criticism of the BCB for their decision from many cricket pundits,^{[citation needed]} including the departing national coach Dav Whatmore, who believed the change was unnecessary.^{[citation needed]} Bashar agreed to step down from the post of ODI captaincy but insisted that he wanted to remain as the national Test captain, but after losing the Test series in the same Indian tour of Bangladesh, the BCB also decided to replace him as Test captain.

The two favourites for the captain's role were Shahriar Nafees (who was vice-captain at the time) and Ashraful. Perhaps due to Nafees's poor form in both the World Cup and the India series the board awarded the captaincy to Ashraful - becoming the second youngest captain of an international cricket team at 22 - with Mashrafe Mortaza replacing Shahriar Nafees as vice-captain of the team.

Ashraful and Mortaza took on these roles from the start of the Sri Lanka tour in June 2007. High hopes were placed on the shoulders of Ashraful by the Bangladeshi fans to motivate the team during the tour, but Bangladesh lost all three of the Test matches by large margins of an innings and 234 runs, an innings and 90 runs and an innings and 193 runs respectively, Ashraful scored a century in the second test.

[edit] Controversy

Mohammad Ashraful created some controversy recently when he slapped a fan who called him "rubbish" while he was training at an indoor stadium in Dhaka. This happened at a time when Ashraful was being heavily criticized in the media for his poor form with the bat and questionable tactics on the field as captain. The BCB fined 25 percent of his salary for the month of March 2008 for violating Code of Conduct. He later apologised for the incident.^[13]

[edit] Career statistics

An innings-by-innings breakdown of Ashraful's Test match batting career, showing runs scored (red bars) and the average of the last ten innings (blue line).

[edit] Test centuries

[edit] One-Day International centuries

[edit] Achievements

[edit] Test Cricket Awards

Test Matches - Man of the Match Awards:

S No	Opponent	Venue	Season	Match Performance
1	Sri Lanka	Sinhalese Sports Club, Colombo, Sri Lanka	2001/02	1st Innings: 26; 0/63 2nd Innings: 114
2	India	MA Aziz Stadium, Chittagong, Bangladesh	2004/05	1st Innings: 1/29; 158* 2nd Innings: 3
3	Sri Lanka	Chittagong Divisional Stadium, Chittagong, Bangladesh	2005/06	1st Innings: 136; 0/20 2nd Innings: 1; 0/13

[edit] One-Day International Cricket Awards

One-Day International Matches - Man of the Match Awards:

S No	Opponent	Venue	Season	Match Performance
1	South Africa	Bangabandhu National Stadium, Dhaka, Bangladesh	2003	0/36; 52
2	Zimbabwe	Harare Sports Club, Harare, Zimbabwe	2003/04	51*
3	Australia	Sophia Gardens, Cardiff, Wales	2005	100
4	Bermuda	Queens Park Oval, Port of Spain, Trinidad	2007	29*
5	South Africa	Providence Stadium, Georgetown, Guyana	2007	87

[edit] Miscellanea

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• Ashraful's family given nickname is Matin but his teammates call him Ash (short for Ashraful), a nickname given to him by former Bangladesh coach and South African international Eddie Barlow.
• He and Bangladesh teammate and opener Shahriar Nafees are very good friends, having been trained by the same coach in the BKSP when they were young.
• 3 of 4 of his Test centuries were against Sri Lanka. The other was against India.
• Ashraful has been caught out more than any other dismissal types in both Tests and ODIs.
• In Tests, he has been dismissed most by Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka , Muraltharan has dismissed Ashraful 6 times.^[14] In ODIs he has been dismissed most by Dilhara Fernando of Sri Lanka, who has dismissed Ashraful four times..^[15]
• In 1997, Sourav Ganguly came to Dhaka to open Amarjyoti cricket club where 12 year old Ashraful met him and asked him for an autograph and a photo, little that either of them knew that they would be playing against each other in the future. When India toured Bangladesh in 2007, Ashraful went up to the Indian team's dinner table in Sonargaon hotel in Dhaka where Ganguly was seated with his team-mates and showed him and the other Indian players the picture.^[16]
• He started his cricket career as a leg-spinner who could bat.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Cricinfo Profile
• Mohammad Ashraful's Profile on BanglaCricket
• Ashraful's battle to make his mark by S.Rajesh

v • d • e Bangladesh squad - 2003 Cricket World Cup 1 Khaled Mashud (w) • 2 Al Sahariar • 3 Alok Kapali • 4 Akram Khan • 5 Habibul Bashar • 6 Hannan Sarkar • 7 Ehsanul Haque • 8 Sanwar Hossain • 9 Khaled Mahmud • 10 Manjural Islam • 11 Mashrafe Mortaza • 12 Mohammad Ashraful • 13 Mohammad Rafique • 14 Talha Jubair • 15 Tapash Baisya • 16 Tushar Imran • Coach: Mohsin Kamal & Ali Zia

v • d • e Bangladesh squad - 2007 Cricket World Cup 1 Habibul Bashar (c) • 2 Shahriar Nafees • 3 Tamim Iqbal • 4 Aftab Ahmed • 5 Saqibul Hasan • 6 Mohammad Ashraful • 7 Mushfiqur Rahim (wk) • 8 Mohammad Rafique • 9 Abdur Razzak • 10 Mashrafe Mortaza • 11 Shahadat Hossain • 12 Tapash Baisya • 13 Syed Rasel • 14 Rajin Saleh • 15 Javed Omar • 16 Farhad Reza • Coach: Whatmore Baisya was injured during the world cup and replaced in the squad by Reza.