Mash becomes first Tiger to 250 ODI wickets

Mashrafe Bin Mortaza becomes the first Tiger to bag 250 ODI wickets after bagging two wickets yesterday.

Over the course of a great career, Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza has seen a lot of highs and lows. Which Bangladesh cricket lover could forget his fiery spell in the 2007 cricket World Cup match against India, where the speedster bowled at high pace – often touching the 145 kph mark and bagged four wickets as a strong Indian batting lineup consisting of the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Virendar Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh -- were bowled out for a measly 191 runs?

His career has been wrought with injuries too. But the paceman has kept coming back strongly, playing through pain. Yesterday he bagged two wickets to reach 250 wickets in his ODI career. He removed both set batsman and broke a 78-run partnership between Afghan captain Asghar Afghan and Hasmatullah Shahidi. Those wickets eventually allowed Bangladesh to win a close encounter by just three runs and keep their Asia Cup hopes alive. Mash's 250 wickets came at a strike rate of 38.6 and an economy rate of 4.81. His best bowling figure remains the 6 for 26 attained against Kenya at Nairobi.

He averages 30.99 runs per wicket and has seven four-wicket hauls in ODIs. The brilliant captain made his ODI debut in 2001 against Zimbabwe and has featured in 194 matches since. He captured 249 ODI wickets for Bangladesh, but then question arises as to how he bagged 250 wickets! One of the wickets he captured was against Africa Xi while playing for Asia XI in 2007.

Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan is the only one amongst the Tigers' bowlers to be in touching distance of the paceman's record. Shakib has 244 wickets to his name in ODIs. Mash is himself in touching distance of India great Kapil Dev's haul of 253 wickets, while if he looks further up the list of all-time ODI wicket takers, he will find mercurial South Africa paceman Allan Donald haul as inspiration -- the fearsome speedster who bagged 272 wickets in just 164 matches.