In the 2014 Asia Cup, Abdur Rehman bowled three balls, none of which was ‘legal’. He was then taken off the attack.

English cricket fans typically remember Abdur Rehman for their 2011/12 tour of the UAE, where he took 19 wickets in three Test matches to help Pakistan inflict a 3-0 whitewash. In the second of these, in Abu Dhabi, England were 21-0 chasing 145, before Rehman (6-25) bowled them out for 72.

Rehman played for Somerset that year. Towards the end of the summer, he was banned for 12 weeks after testing positive for having smoked cannabis. All this took place in the span of ten months. And yet, none of that was as bizarre as his spell against Bangladesh in the Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur, in the 2014 Asia Cup.

Mushfiqur Rahim won the toss and opted to bat that afternoon. Mohammad Hafeez – this was Mirpur, after all – and Umar Gul took new ball, and Anamul Haque and Imrul Kayes took Bangladesh to 39-0 after 10 overs. Misbah-ul-Haq summoned Rehman to bowl the 11th over.

The first ball clearly slipped off Rehman’s hands. It soared high above Imrul’s head, and was so wide outside the off stump that wicketkeeper Umar Akmal had to gather the ball outside the pitch. No-ball for height, was the verdict.

Rehman’s next ball was a high full toss – though, thankfully, within Imrul’s reach. Imrul swatted it to deep mid-wicket. Sohaib Maqsood ran to his right to catch it and celebrated, but the umpires conferred, and referred to the third umpire: had it been too high?

Yes, came the verdict. The ball was well above the permissible waist-level – in other words, a no-ball for height. However, Rehman was allowed to continue, probably because the first ball had been too wayward to threaten anyone physically.

The batters had meanwhile crossed over. Having conceded three runs without bowling a legal ball, Rehman came on again, this time to the right-handed Anamul. He did manage to change his line, but it turned out to be another high full toss.

Anamul duly swatted it to the mid-wicket boundary, but there was a problem. Once again, the full-toss had been too high. The umpires called a no-ball for height thrice in a row.

This time they were not lenient either. As per the Laws, Rehman had to be taken off the attack for the rest of the innings.

He finished with figures of 0-0-8-0. In other words, he did bowl – but they never showed in his bowling figures.

There have been instances where a bowler has sent down balls, none of them legal, even in international cricket. However, until Rehman, all of them were instances of bowlers being introduced with too few runs left to be scored – in other words, they were completing the formalities. The batting side typically got the runs off the only (illegal) delivery. Rehman bowled in the first innings of a match.

The complete list, until Rehman, reads Allan Lamb, David Gower, Dhammika Prasad in Men’s Tests; Mansoor Akhtar, Jimmy Adams, Collins Obuya in Men’s ODIs; and Jennifer Gray in Women’s ODIs.

As for the match, Bangladesh rode on Anamul’s 100 and fifties from Imrul and Mominul before Mushfiqur and Shakib Al Hasan added an unbroken 77 in 34 balls to take them to 326-3. But Ahmed Shehzad responded with 103 as well, and Shahid Afridi did a Shahid Afridi, slamming 59 in 25 balls, to see Pakistan home with a ball to spare.

Rehman never made another appearance for Pakistan in limited-overs internationals, though he played two Test matches in Sri Lanka the same year.