Being Outside Cricket

Tamim Iqbal – 206 v Pakistan at Khulna

Tamim Iqbal, once, as I always like to remind him, compared to Virender Sehwag by Jonathan Agnew, is really hitting form. Today he reached the pinnacle of Bangladesh test batting by setting its record score. His 206 broke the record set by Mushfiqur Rahman (200) two years ago in Galle against Sri Lanka. It took his test batting average over 40. It was his seventh test hundred, he’s a good over or two’s thrashing from 3000 test runs, and he’s just 26. It’s a bit of a transformation for him, and Bangladeshi test cricket. On the batting front there are green shoots of recovery.

This was the 16th double hundred made in tests in Bangladesh (we set out the country record and ground record holders in the Mohammad Hafeez piece). 206 places Tamim in 9th place in the list. When he reached 182 he passed Monimul Haque for the highest score by a Bangladesh test batsman in their host country. This was the 14th double ton in Bangladesh involving the host nation – two Pakistanis made their doubles against Sri Lanka in the Asian Test Championship. This was Tamim’s second ton at Khulna, his fourth in Bangladesh (he has two in England) and only the third of his centuries to pass 110.

206 has been made 14 times in test cricket? Have you seen one Dmitri? Well funny you should mention that but I have. It was in Adelaide, funnily enough, and it was Paul Collingwood who made it. I wonder how that test panned out?

The first 206 was made in 1938 by Bill Brown, who carried his bat for that score at Lord’s in 1938 after Walter Hammond had made a big double for England in the first innings. Lord’s saw the second 206, when Martin Donnelly of New Zealand made that score in 1949. Lord’s shares the distinction of having two scores of 206 with the Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain, where both Everton Weekes and Ricky Ponting have made that score. Also, Adelaide has two – Collingwood and Arthur Morris. The last 206 was Chetshwar Pujara’s unbeaten innings against England in Ahmedabad. You know, the game Arron refers to a lot when it came to our selection of bowlers (and rightly so). Another notable 206 innings came from Ravi Shastri in Sydney (Shane Warne’s debut).

Tamim Iqbal’s 100 came up in 124 balls and included 11 x 4 and 3 x 6. His 200 came off 264 balls, with 17 x 4 and 7 x 6, with the final tally for his innings being 278 balls. A National Record to be proud of Tamim. Bangladesh may well be on the rise.