Raqibul Hasan

A strange character, who announced his retirement only to retract his decision a week later, Raqibul Hasan is one of the young batting talents to come out of Bangladesh in recent times. He became the first Bangladeshi to score a triple century in first class cricket when Barisal played Sylhet Division in March 2007.

Raqibul impressed during the tri-nation series featuring England and Sri Lanka and on the back of that performance was selected to play for Bangladesh against South Africa in 2008. He made his test debut against the same opposition during the return tour later that year. His knock of 65 against a second string West Indian side enabled Bangladesh to record their first test series win abroad.

A solid middle-order batsman, Raqibul has the patience to build an innings - a trait that has enabled him to play some gutsy test match knocks. Despite playing 7 tests and 55 ODIs till date, he has failed to get to the magical three figure mark even once.

Soon things didn't go to script and he was dropped for the T20 World Cup in 2010. This move angered Raqibul who shocked everyone by announcing his retirement protesting his non-exclusion. After retracting his decision he was selected for the tour to England but an injury sidelined him after just one game on the tour.

Raqibul was considered for the 2011 World Cup and he had poor run but continued to be in the team for the home series against Australia. After playing the two matches against them he was left out of the squad and has not been able to make it back to the ODI side.

Interesting fact: Raqibul Hasan's nickname is Nirala.

By Srivathsa