Najmul Hossain Shanto enters record books with twin hundreds during Mirpur Test match
Najmul Hossain Shanto set a plethora of records during the Mirpur Test match between Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
Najmul Hossain Shanto had come to bat in the second over after Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi won the toss at the Shere Bangla National Stadium and opted to bowl.
He hit 23 fours and two sixes in his 175-ball 146 to lift Bangladesh to 382. In Afghanistan’s brief Test history, only Sean Williams (151 at Abu Dhabi in 2021) had made a bigger score against them.
In the same innings, Nijat Masood claimed 5-79, the best figures by an Afghan seamer in Test cricket. He improved on the 3-41 by Yamin Ahmadzai (against Ireland at Dehradun in 2018/19), who now holds the four places from second to fifth.
Nijat’s figures are also the second-best for an Afghan Test debutant, after left-arm finger spinner Amir Hamza’s 5-74 against the West Indies at Lucknow in 2019/20.
With 4-47, Ebadot Hossain then bowled out Afghanistan for 146, but not before Afsar Zazai made 36. Zazai now holds the only five double-digit scores by Afghan wicketkeepers, all of which are between 32 and 48.
Mehidy Hasan Miraz finished with 2-15, which made him the third Bangladeshi bowler, after Shakib Al Hasan (233) and Taijul Islam (177), to reach the 150-mark.
Despite the 136-run lead, Bangladesh captain Litton Das chose to bat again. This time Shanto made 124 with 15 fours. In the process, he became the second Bangladesh batter to score two hundreds in a Test match, after Mominul Haque, who had made 176 and 105 against Sri Lanka at Chattogram in 2017/18.
Shanto’s match aggregate of 270 is also next to only Mominul’s 281 from that Test. However, he hit 38 fours in the ongoing Test, eclipsing Tamim Iqbal’s Bangladesh record of 33, set against New Zealand at Hamilton in 2018/19.
Bangladesh declared on 425-4 in the second innings at tea on day three, leaving Afghanistan a mammoth 662 to chase. Mominul Haque was the other centurion in the Bangladesh second innings, he now has 12 Test hundreds, two more than any other Bangladesh batter.
